Are Comprehensive Performance Assessments local government's very own I'm a celebrity contest a desperate scrabble for stars and praise or a helpful catalyst for improvement? Phil Swann...
With the NHS running an unhealthily large deficit, the government is sending in hit squads to sort out the problems. But do they have the right prescription? Seamus Ward investigates
Audit Scotland has published new guidance on the issues and risks faced by public bodies in the latest stage of its efforts to modernise the scrutiny process.
Local authorities remain on course to meet their Gershon efficiency targets for 2005/06 with just three months of this financial year remaining, the latest analysis from the Office of the Deputy...
Ministers are being challenged to commit themselves to a major increase in social housing after new figures showed the number of families without permanent homes still exceeds 100,000.
Health minister Lord Warner stunned delegates at the Healthcare Financial Management Association annual conference by blaming the health service's financial problems on managers.
The time is ripe for a wide-ranging debate on the case for devolving more powers to councils, Sir Michael Lyons said this week as he issued the interim report of his inquiry into local government.
Patients are 25% more likely to develop post-operative complications after being treated in one of the new privately run treatment centres than in their NHS equivalents, clinical directors claim.
Town and county hall leaders have accepted they need to work with the funding settlement announced last week but have appealed to ministers not to blame tax rises on high-spending councils.
The Department for Work and Pensions this week released details of the job cuts it has overseen as part of the Gershon review totals that surpass figures in the 2005 Pre-Budget Report.
Fed up with slaving away in the background on your worthy but dull project while others bask in the glory of their ground-breaking, award-winning pathfinders? Well, suffer no longer. Michael Ware has...
Well, the Licensing Act has finally come into effect, and half the nation is still waiting in fear for the other half to go on a drunken rampage. Philip Johnston considers the consequences of the law...
Westminster is at it again, proposing 'super councils' that will rapidly gobble up smaller ones. George Jones and John Stewart reckon something fishy is going on
The government's £1.1bn funding boost for local government, announced alongside the Pre-Budget Report, might have mollified council chiefs, but the goal of making high council tax rises 'a thing of...
Councils' scrutiny committees are likely to be transformed into 'local area select committees' under proposals to place Local Strategic Partnerships at the centre of service delivery, Phil Woolas has...
A senior Whitehall academic this week cast doubt on Gordon Brown's claim that the government is on target to achieve its ambitious £40bn efficiency savings package by 2008.
All local authorities must share the spoils of the proposed Planning Gain Supplement or the gap between areas of economic success and deprivation will widen, Gordon Brown is being warned.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has published draft regulations abolishing the so-called '85-year rule', which allowed some local government workers to retire before the age of 65.