Children’s Secretary Ed Balls is to improve the support given to pupils with special educational needs by toughening up inspections and giving parents stronger powers
An MPs’ report has called for radical cultural change in universities, arguing that standards are inconsistent across the sector, and that part-time and mature students are discriminated against
Efforts to revive the house building industry moved up a gear this week with publication of a short list of 270 stalled schemes eligible for Kickstart programme funding
The effects of the Learning and Skills Council’s college building mismanagement could be worsened by the recession, the Commons Public Accounts Committee has warned
A damning report from a Commons committee has called for radical reforms of the social work profession after finding that training regimes were inadequate
A single Whitehall department has run up a bill of more than £570m - more than a fifth of its resource budget - on consultants, temporary staff and professional services in just one year
Former Audit Commission chair Sir David Cooksey has been appointed to chair UK Financial Investments, the body that manages the taxpayers’ stake in the nationalised banks
The government’s £3m campaign to cut knife crime has so far failed to reduce the number of offences, figures produced by the Home Office on July 21 showed
A report on social mobility by former Cabinet minister Alan Milburn, published on July 21, has said that access to top professions such as medicine and the law is increasingly closed off to all but...
Equality and Human Rights Commission chair Trevor Phillips has come under renewed fire as the National Audit Office refused to sign off the body’s accounts
Michael O’Higgins has been reappointed for a second three-year term as chair of the Audit Commission by Communities and Local Government Secretary John Denham
With mass manufacturing redundancies back
on the agenda, there needs to be a permanent task force to deal with the economic shocks. David Bailey, Caroline Chapain and Stephen Hall report
Public bodies charged with carrying out crucial policies must challenge the government if they believe the tasks they have been set are impossible, MPs have said.
Housing associations are concerned they might be forced to cut services for vulnerable tenants after the government refused to guarantee that rents will not fall next year.
The National Audit Office has issued a health warning about the Department for Work and Pensions’ accounts, citing fraud and error that has cost the taxpayer an estimated £2.7bn.