First Minister Henry McLeish has risked confrontation with unions and councils by making his strongest commitment yet to the Blairite programme of public services modernisation through private sector...
Dame Helena Shovelton's annus horribilis came full circle this week when the government announced it would not re-employ her as chair of the Audit Commission.
Unions have given a lukewarm welcome to government plans for a £250m sweetener for teachers based in the Southeast who are priced out of jobs because of escalating property prices.
Local councils are being invited to bid for a share of £25m being put up by the government to extend the street warden scheme. Councils will have to match the central payment from their own budgets...
Councils and the police can now impose curfews on children as old as 15 if they deem them anti-social, following new laws that came into effect on August 1.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone is likely to appeal against this week's High Court decision to give the go-ahead to the government's plans for partial privatisation of the London Underground.
Final contracts that would allow the private sector preferred bidders to begin work on London Underground's deep Tube lines could be delayed by a further six months until next spring.
The council of riot-torn Oldham is being forced to slash services or raise council tax rates by as much as 20% to limit the damage that overspending is inflicting on its financial reserves.
In what has been described as a 'near revolutionary' step, the government has reopened the debate on the unfunded police and fire pension schemes and raised the possibility of meeting pension costs...
Seven of the leading professional associations in local government have agreed a set of principles in response to Prime Minister Tony Blair's 'reform or bust' speech this week.
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city riven by divisions. On one side are hip Labour councillors ready to plough as much as £488,000 into a youth culture event, the Love Parade.
Fraud Squad officers have been called in to investigate financial irregularities in the Scottish Borders Council (SBC), as the authority's internal inquiry into a near-£4m overspend nears its...
Bob Black, Scotland's auditor general, has hit out at the financial accountability of the country's further education colleges in an audit review of Moray College.
Combating racism in the medical profession should be a key performance indicator for NHS trusts, and chief executives should be held responsible if they fail, the King's Fund said this week.
The government intends to give the private sector fixed-term contracts to manage schools and more 'sponsorship opportunities' under a legislative programme designed to place more pressure on public...
The government's drugs czar, Keith Hellawell, is to lose his job in the wake of new Home Secretary David Blunkett's takeover of responsibility for the fight against drugs.
Incoming ministers should show more trust in the qualities of the public sector and not attach themselves to the 'myth of the private sector as super-hero', a new policy document, Transforming...
Lambeth council in south London is to consider waiving multi-million pound compensation rights in an attempt to make a speedy withdrawal from its ill-fated housing benefit contract with outsourcing...
As we enter the final week of the election campaign there are two key questions: can William Hague succeed in his aim of getting the election focus firmly on the issue of Europe, and will it make any...
The Royal College of Nursing has welcomed the Liberal Democrats' manifesto promise to use higher taxes to recruit more nurses and give them a £1,000 pay rise.
