Social mobility has stalled, despite the government's best efforts to raise the aspirations of children from working-class homes. Effective reform of local services will be crucial to turning this...
Everyone agrees that the council tax is regressive but there's less consensus on the solution. The interim Lyons report plumped for reforming the benefit system and not the bands. But both are...
The government needs to put its house in order over how it approaches its much-publicised efficiency drive or it may find that the result is to make the public sector even less effective than it was...
Town halls are on course for average council tax increases of 4% well within the government's 5% capping threshold but still ahead of the rate of inflation.
A conflict between the government's private investment programme in schools and the education white paper means it must choose between escalating borrowing costs or significantly reducing its...
First Minister Jack McConnell hinted at the prospect of a reorganisation of local government in Scotland as local authorities set council tax levels with an average rise of 3.3%.
& is a problem halved. But not when public bodies can't agree on the best ways to collaborate. Judy Hirst explains why sharing services is so hard to do
Labour's plans for more housing depend on developers paying for the accompanying infrastructure with a new planning gain supplement. But there is opposition to this tax on building, as Mark Smulian...
When the National Audit Office investigated Whitehall's efficiency savings it found that they weren't all they seemed. Some were aspirational, some weren't efficient and others couldn't be proved....
The Private Finance Initiative has never been a free lunch for the NHS. Now even the Treasury seems to be losing its appetite for large PFI hospital schemes. Noel Plumridge explains why
More than half of the savings made under Whitehall's efficiency agenda have effectively been wiped out by an unexpected rise in the cost of staff pensions across two sectors this year, it has emerged.
Ministers have been accused of political expediency, amid mounting speculation that decisions have been taken to reorganise local government and delay the 2007 local elections.
The government's gamble to persuade rebel MPs to back its education reforms by offering concessions over admissions procedures and the role of local authorities might still fail, opponents have told...
Sir David Henshaw, the chief executive behind Liverpool City Council's renaissance as a high-performing local authority, has been recruited by Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton to lead a review...
Paul Coen, the incoming chief executive of the Local Government Association, has vowed to forge closer links between local agencies as the spur to achieving improvements in public services.
The official overseeing Whitehall's £40bn efficiency agenda this week urged public bodies to rethink plans to share back-office services, amid Treasury concerns that too many 'centres of excellence'...
Critics of local government's structure need look no further than Durham to support their case against two-tier councils. Would a unitary approach across England produce less confusion, while...
The government's white paper on health has outlined how it proposes to tackle inequalities of care, but fudges some crucial issues over funding and provision, which may undermine its effectiveness
As struggling NHS trusts face a year of even more cost pressures, targets, efficiency savings and payment by results, they will have to use every wile they can to attract patients. Seamus Ward...
The government was this week accused of failing Britain's poorest groups after it emerged that up to £7bn in benefits went unclaimed in 2003/04, while take-up of key welfare payments has fallen since...
Health economists have called into doubt the government's presumption that its planned transfer of 5% of current hospital activity £2.4bn in budget terms to primary and social care will be cost-...
Voluntary organisations can reach parts that monolithic public services can't even get close to. And the government is waking up to their importance in areas such as employment services and welfare...
