Many of Bexley council's school pupils were being educated in huts, with winds raging through broken windows. Then the chance of a £30m PFI refurbishment programme came along. Mike Ellsmore explains...
Business leaders have dismissed regional development agencies as irrelevant to the success of their companies, saying they do not understand their role or even why they exist.
Finally, a hospital waiting time target that should genuinely help patients. But can the tough new plan to cut the time from GP referral to treatment to 18 weeks be achieved? Anthony Harrison and...
Britain still dumps most of its rubbish in landfill sites, instead of recycling it. But tough new European Union regulations are set to change all that. David Meilton reports on how councils are...
Local authorities are vulnerable to a legal challenge that their outsourced services breach new European Union rules designed to avoid the overpayment of contractors, Public Finance has learnt.
Local government must step up its efficiency drive by adopting bigger and bolder strategies, the sector's procurement champion Tim Byles has told Public Finance.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's review of the local government grant formula must take greater account of the extra cost of providing essential public services to far-flung rural...
For all the talk of a dramatic urban renaissance, population flight from Britain's city centres to suburbia and the countryside continues apace. Tony Travers explains what needs to be done to reverse...
The Office of Government Commerce's trading arm this week reported that it had made efficiency savings worth £321m on £2bn worth of procurement deals during 2004/05.
Sir Andrew Turnbull this week delivered his final speech as Cabinet secretary, calling for further Whitehall reforms and attacking critics who questioned civil service values under his stewardship.
A new report has found local authorities wanting in their financial management and governance. But the figures do not tell the whole story, and there are solid foundations on which to build...
You wouldn't know it, but the NHS Plan had its fifth birthday this week. There were no celebrations and ministers ignored the occasion. So what ever happened to this 'once-in-a-lifetime' opportunity...
Although public sector bodies have adopted tough safeguards against fraud in recent years, many staff believe these exist on paper only. But now there is a toolkit to help put these policies into...
The Local Authority Business Growth Incentive scheme is a good idea on paper rewarding councils for increasing their business tax base. But they would get the benefits faster through the annual...
Wellbeing rather than narrow concerns about efficiency looks set to be the next big thing for policy makers. Phil Swann explores the meaning of public value
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has pledged to continue the market reforms in the NHS by opening further sectors to private sector competition and increasing patient 'voice' within the system.
England's councils could exceed their £1.2bn efficiency target for 2005/06, according to a comprehensive study of 152 local authorities by IPF, the commercial arm of CIPFA.
Senior mandarins fear that the government's secretive change to the legal status of special advisers, which came to light this week, will give spin doctors new powers over civil servants.
London won the right to stage the 2012 Olympics on the strength of the legacy that it will leave behind for deprived areas such as east London. So will transport, housing and other facilities be...
The government's decision to cap the budgets of eight English councils has prompted warnings of service cuts and complaints about the cost of rebilling.
The rise in emergency admissions and the problem of patients who cancel their operations have contributed to the under-use of day surgery facilities, the NHS Confederation claimed this week.
The director of the Centre for Cities is using skills honed at the Treasury to focus on the economic and commercial drivers of urban development. Will Hatchett reports
