Local Improvement Finance Trusts can make a big difference to health services, but issues need to be resolved around value-for-money comparisons, resourcing and the rationalisation of primary care...
The council tax issue is not going to go away, says Tony Travers. The government might have postponed the revaluation but this won't stop the annual rises and accompanying protests. It's time to take...
NHS foundation trusts have made good progress but their future success relies heavily on assumptions that will be difficult to realise, regulator Monitor said this week.
Leaked official documents suggest that the government is planning far wider private sector involvement in the NHS than previously admitted, a senior member of the Common's health select committee has...
Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain has been criticised by the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance for calling for a reduction in the size of the province's public sector.
New Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has chosen a local government expert to lead the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and promoted a specialist to manage the Northern Ireland Office.
As the Conservatives gear up for their Blackpool conference next week, they face their most important leadership contest in more than 40 years. Philip Johnston analyses the policies behind the beauty...
The NHS needs finance skills more than ever if it is to transform itself into a modern, forward-planning organisation while struggling with major structural upheavals, growing deficits and the need...
The Commission for Social Care Inspection has loosened its 'special action' measures against Birmingham City Council's children's services after an inspection this summer found 'promising prospects...
Public service unions are vowing to step up their opposition to the government's controversial reform programme after bloodying ministers' noses over pensions and the NHS at the Labour Party...
The Liberal Democrat leadership this week called on members to support a bold range of new policy proposals designed to give the party a real chance of electoral success by the end of the decade.
NHS organisations continue to face tough financial decisions because of chronic underspending in the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS Confederation said this week.
Patient and Public Involvement forums might be reformed along very similar lines to the recently abolished Community Health Councils, health minister Rosie Winterton said this week.
Public bodies, such as NHS trusts and colleges, are now eligible to defer payment of millions of pounds in VAT, following a European Court of Justice ruling.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is considering proposals to expand the powers of local authority overview and scrutiny committees, so they would be able to hold government departments and...
Can you only feel the public service ethos if you are employed by the public sector? Of course not, says Ann Rossiter. It all depends on the values of the service provider
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are meant to be as one on the need for radical public sector reform. But as Blair embarks on one of his last Party conferences as PM, his quest for a legacy is bringing...
NHS trusts and private care providers should compete on price as well as quality under payment by results, according to shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley.
The legislative process needs to be pared down and made subject to 'sunset clauses' if more trust is to be built up between central and local government, argue George Jones and John Stewart
Mammoth PFI commitments appear to have had their day in the NHS, now that the government is prizing competition above all else. Smaller, self-financed projects are emerging as the way forward
The Commission for Social Care Inspection has condemned the government's plans to move its children's services remit to an enlarged Ofsted as 'incoherent', 'illogical' and 'dangerous'.
