Local authorities have made efficiency savings, yet ever-increasing social care demands continue to put pressure on their budgets. It's time to come up with a fair and sustainable system of funding
Up to 80 cottage hospitals in England are threatened with closure and yet NHS community hospitals are meant to be the next big thing. Tash Shifrin investigates
Next week's Budget looks like being a return to form for the chancellor, thanks to a big rise in tax receipts. But is he on course to hit his political as well as economic targets? Peter Riddell...
Patients have failed to benefit from a new contract for consultants which has cost the NHS in Scotland an extra £235m over three years, Audit Scotland has found.
Social Homebuy was launched a year ago with the promise of giving social tenants the chance to buy a part share in their homes. Neil Merrick visits an estate that is piloting the scheme
Fears of a multibillion pound black hole in public sector pensions have brought forward calls for the chancellor to amend his fiscal rules. John Hawksworth analyses the options and calls on the...
In 2003, angry pensioners were taking to the streets as council tax soared, unchecked by government. This year, ministers cracked the whip and councils meekly complied. Tony Travers explains what's...
Sir Nigel Crisp's resignation as permanent secretary at the Department of Health followed a breakdown in relations between ministers and senior civil servants, documents obtained by Public Finance...
Productivity in the NHS is at best stagnant, despite the record sums of money invested in the health service by the government, figures from the Office for National Statistics show.
David Rowland, the permanent secretary at the Department for Transport, has been asked by the Treasury to co-ordinate Whitehall's latest attempt at a multi-billion pound savings drive through shared...
Most local authorities want to make the most of their community powers and include social and environmental benefits in the contracts they award. But procurement law can be problematic
In a week when the Women and Work Commission found gender inequality to be very much alive, the EOC chair tells Sally Gainsbury about the equality challenges facing the public sector
Not for Scotland the path well trodden. While Westminster endorses market-based public service reforms, the Scottish Executive is ploughing its own furrow on education, health and immigration. Iain...
Public sector staff worked £9.1bn worth of unpaid overtime last year, with those taking on additional work providing the equivalent of an extra day each week, according to research published this...
NHS health boards in Scotland are to receive an above-inflation average funding increase of 7.25%, bringing their allocation to £6.5bn, Health Minister Andy Kerr announced this week.
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...
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...
