Most of the Revenue & Customs department's 100,000 staff are to receive pay rises of 3%-4% each year until 2008 under a new deal that will eradicate large wage disparities.
Chief inspector of schools David Bell has backed plans for greater autonomy for head teachers, which are widely expected to be included in the education white paper due to be published next week.
Managers in the public sector came under fire from a leading economist at the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers annual conference this week.
For years, people have been asking why central government is not subject to the same rigorous performance assessments as the rest of the public sector. Well, now Whitehall's turn has come
Sunday is a day of rest and dread if you run a public body. For, come Monday, you know you have to run a gauntlet of inspectors, auditors, MPs and others who all have something to say about your...
Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell this week backed calls for a civil service Act to enshrine Whitehall's independence, but warned that his legislative preferences could be thwarted by political...
Becoming more efficient isn't an end in itself for local authorities. By improving the way they do things, councils can concentrate more on their main job managing resources and services in the...
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...
A future Conservative government should match Margaret Thatcher's 'enterprise revolution' in industry, with a 'social enterprise revolution' in the public services, shadow health secretary Andrew...
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...
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 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.
The architect of Whitehall's £40bn savings plan believes ministers will seek to achieve public sector efficiencies beyond the target date of 2008 because of the political imperative to restrain...
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
They call him the 'smiling assassin' and he's certainly ruthless about improving education. DfES permanent secretary Sir David Normington talks to Maria McHale about his role and rumours of an...
John Hutton, the government minister for public service reform, last week vowed that central targets would continue, despite mounting criticism from local councils and think-tanks such as the Social...
Local government leaders threw down a challenge to ministers this week, volunteering to take on a range of tough new responsibilities in exchange for greater freedom from central regulation.
A shake-up of policing in London could be jeopardised because the funds it needs have been swallowed up by the extra costs arising from the terrorist attacks on July 7 and 21, Public Finance has...
New Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has told local government leaders that he will be urging central government departments to allow local authorities more flexibility in the way they spend their...
Whitehall should be subject to a performance inspection regime similar to the one already in place for local government, the head of the Office of Government Commerce said this week.
