Public service unions have ducked a confrontation over comments from the prime minister about the future of annual pay negotiations across the public sector.
The NHS is wasting up to £50m a year on private health care for mentally ill patients after closing nearly 10,000 psychiatric beds, health watchdog London Emergency Health has claimed. In a report...
The government has admitted that half this year's funding increase for education will be swallowed up by the teachers' pay rise, leaving much less than expected for other improvements.
The Improvement and Development Agency is to lead the fightback against the government's privatisation agenda for schools by creating its own 'hit squads' for local education authorities.
Housing may be ignored by Labour as the government sets spending targets for a second term in office, prospective mayor of London Ken Livingstone warned this week.
Critics of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) have leapt on a National Audit Office report criticising the first major NHS hospital built under the policy.
Local authorities in the north, the Midlands and Scotland will now be expected to absorb 20,000 or more refugees from the Kosovo war, it was revealed this week.
The role of negotiating grants to the new Scottish assembly has been given to John Reid, who impressed Number 10 when transport minister by facing down protesting lorry-drivers angered by increases...
The Ministry of Defence suffers unnecessary problems disposing of redundant land and buildings because the government has not made the abolition of Crown immunity a top priority, according to...
Number 10 should force high-profile directly elected mayors on Britain's major cities regardless of the wishes of reluctant councils, a political reform group urged this week.
The Department of Health is planning to introduce money-back financial incentives for health authorities across the country as part of its crackdown on fraud in the National Health Service.
A strong impetus has been given to private sector management of state schools by publication of a government list of selected consultancies that will be permitted to bid for services mismanaged by...
The Cabinet Office seriously breached parliamentary accountability when it failed to meet statutory financial deadlines following the privatisation of three government agencies in 1996, according to...
The English NHS is slowly hauling itself back into the black but a significant number of health authorities and trusts are still in serious financial difficulties, according to the National Audit...
Home Secretary Jack Straw this week committed Britain to accepting 1,000 Kosovar refugees a week and promised local authorities that the government will foot the bill.
The Local Government Association's demands for comprehensive transport legislation in the next Queen's Speech has won backing from a House of Commons select committee.
Ministers have rejected NHS finance leaders' calls for financial targets to be relaxed and have ordered health authorities and trusts in England back to the drawing board to eliminate a projected £...
Moves to streamline the housing benefit system are being stepped up after evidence that delays in processing claims is the major cause of rent arrears.
The first 21 projects in the government's £80m Sure Start programme have been given the green light and are expected to provide extra services to 18,000 disadvantaged children four years old and...
