Nick Clegg has championed the cause of 'alarm clock Britain', the people who want to get up and get on. But changes to the childcare tax credit due to come into force next month will leave these very...
Will Hutton is not a simple bloke. Working with him on the expert group to the Fair Pay Review, you realise that his brain is enormous. His final report brilliantly highlights why top pay has taken...
The UK public sector is much like the British film industry. We always fit type - we can't help it. What we don't see is many examples of originality or innovation
Countries with low standards of living need financial assistance as well as better and more efficient systems to keep track of the money that flows into their exchequers.
The Howard League for Penal Reform has serious reservations about 'payment by results', particularly in criminal justice, where it has no track record of success
We all know the usual story on social mobility. It's been falling steadily for ages and continued to fall during the Labour years.
It sounds like a compelling story - the problem is, it's not clear...
If the government implements Lord Hutton's recommendations, it will want to make sure that pensions remain competitive for high-flyers and that these valuable future leaders do not decide to leave...
Local authorities haven't frozen council tax out of the goodness of their hearts. It's rather as a result of the particular form of persuasion adopted by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles
Central government has been quick to criticise councils for the way they have cut funds to the voluntary sector. But has Whitehall performed any better itself? Let's take a look
Bureaucrat bashing is, for many, an attractive and enjoyable blood sport. It is built into the DNA of certain parts of Fleet Street, providing easy targets as the hapless bureaucrats have no real...
Following the referendum result, Welsh politicians have called for the abolition of the Wales Office. But this isn't necessary - it's more important to decide what role the Office should have
When various factors combined unexpectedly to hold up rubbish collections early this year, councils were pilloried. But such risks should be prepared for
Most members of the local government finance community have been expecting and planning for big cuts for a couple of years, even if they mentally labelled the changes 'Operation Hope Not' ('Honey, I...
Poor Bob Neill. It must be hard enough being local government minister without being subject to attacks that he is a centrist disguised as a localist ('Neil hits back at criticisms of Localism Bill...
The coalition government has reversed the progress made by New Labour on evidence-based policy. Both data and analytical capacity are being stripped away from Whitehall
Cameron is a professional PR man and his ear is well tuned. So when he says 'enemy', as in public officials are the 'enemies of enterprise', he is well aware of the echoes of his political patron...
The danger in the message from Wolf's report is that it will tilt the education system so far away from pre-16 vocational or practical education that it not only creates a large new cohort of truants...
Too many local authorities and their local public sector partners appear to be seeing grants to community and voluntary groups as easy targets for their cutting. Such views are extraordinarily short...
Payment by results looks set to revolutionise criminal justice policy. But ministers must be prepared to follow the logic of PBR to its radical policy conclusions if this exciting scheme is really to...
Observers of the national inspection regimes for residential and care home providers will have watched the old purpose-built, local authority arm's length units change beyond recognition