Town hall leaders will use their top-level meeting with government ministers next week to demand assurances that councils will not be sidelined by the much-vaunted policy of 'new localism'.
Fears...
Few finance managers feel able to express strongly positive views on the success of e-government plans
Last week's local election results will have given comfort to e-government enthusiasts...
Labour has held on to power in the devolved administrations, strengthening its position in the Welsh Assembly but losing six seats in the Scottish Parliament.
Welsh Labour leader Rhodri Morgan said...
The cost of running central government has risen sharply, according to figures released by the Treasury this week.
Central administration and associated spending were the highest for 18 years,...
Non-profit-distributing public interest companies have a 'potentially important role' to play in public service delivery, says a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research. But it warns...
NHS consultants this week threatened industrial action over their contracts despite the government's abandonment of plans to make them work over weekends and in the evenings.
Last year, consultants...
Head teachers this week accused ministers of playing a deliberate 'smoke and mirrors' game with education budgets, using 'double or triple counting' tricks to play up bottom-line increases in funding...
Just one in five young voters bothered to show up at the polling booth in the 2001 general election, the first major study of first-time voters has shown.
Researchers found that only 21% of 18 and...
Ian Pearson, Northern Ireland Office minister for economic policy and finance, has announced the members of the province's new Strategic Investment Board.
The directors will be Nigel Hamilton, head...
Weaknesses in the Department for Work and Pensions' computer system hamper efforts to increase the take-up of benefits among elderly people, the Public Accounts Committee has said.
Between £930m...
Twenty-two luminaries from the world of local government are to scrutinise how Whitehall funds town halls, as the balance of funding review finally got under way this week.
Local government...
Rail unions have reacted with dismay to revelations that firms involved in the controversial part-privatisation of the London Underground will be fined just £4m for major disruption on the network...
The Liberal Democrats pledged to abolish council tax and replace it with a locally set income tax, as they launched their campaign on March 31 for the May council elections.
Local government...
The Prison Service is missing out on potential savings because its procurement procedures are too fragmented, according to the National Audit Office.
The public spending watchdog found that while...
Local government leaders hit out at the government this week after Nick Raynsford demanded an explanation from authorities for the 'excessive' council tax increases that some have levied.
The Welsh Assembly has said it will 'consider in depth' a National Audit Office recommendation to restructure the way its NHS directorate procures medicines, after auditors said it could save £50m a...
Education Secretary Charles Clarke has refused to give MPs an undertaking that universities successful in raising money themselves would be protected from a corresponding cut in central government...
The Liberal Democrats hope to benefit from Labour's unpopularity over the Iraq crisis and the continuing doldrums of the Tories to make serious gains in May's local elections.
The party's spring...
The government has confirmed it is to throw another multimillion pound lifeline to the beleaguered private company in charge of Britain's skies.
Under a refinancing deal approved by the Civil...
Local Government Association economic and environmental policy director Neil Kinghan is crossing back into central government to become director general for local and regional government at the...
An NHS trust this week denied it will have to close a celebrated teaching hospital because of a Private Finance Initiative 'blunder'.
St Mary's Trust said it favoured keeping its Western Eye...
Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith has vowed to scrap NHS waiting list targets if the party wins the next election, under plans outlined in a consultation document.
Tapping into the...
The relentless push for public services improvement has provided a burgeoning market for the Improvement and Development Agency, which plans to expand to meet rising demand from local government....
A revised GP contract will put patients at the heart of NHS primary care services by ushering in a radical reform of the way practices are funded.
The proposed contract, published late last week,...
