A government agency extended the contract with a private sector consortium to decommission the Sellafield nuclear plant despite its poor performance and ‘astonishing’ cost increases, MPs have said...
Government plans to scrap more than 300 public bodies have made good progress and saved more than £700m in administrative spending, according to the National Audit Office.
Ed Miliband will tonight set out plans to reform public services if Labour wins the next election, including giving parents a right to demand action to improve standards at failing schools.
It’s a daunting task having to manage large property portfolios in the public sector. Adopting a centralised approach permits both financial savings and organisational efficiences, as Jane Lowrie...
Politicians pledging to devolve power from Whitehall at the next general election must learn from previous failures or risk repeating the errors of attempts to introduce elected mayors and regional...
Prime Minister David Cameron has today called on people across the UK to speak out in support of the union as part of Scotland’s independence referendum campaign.
The government is on course to meet its target to take the public finances into the black by the end of the next parliament, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said today.
Local government secretary Eric Pickles has announced changes to the Bellwin scheme to provide extra assistance to councils hit by the floods and storms in recent months
The Ministry of Justice has begun formal contract talks with potential private and third sector providers of rehabilitation services as it prepares to introduce payment-by-result contracts to cut...
The government’s part-localisation of business rates to councils has been ‘ill-designed’ as the plan to reset the system by 2020 means growth incentives will soon diminish, the Institute for Fiscal...
No Scottish tenant will face eviction as a result of the so-called bedroom tax following an unprecedented Budget deal between Labour and the Scottish National Party Government at Holyrood.
Just over one-third of councils in England have so far agreed to accept a government grant to freeze or cut their council tax from April, latest figures from the Department for Communities and Local...
Local government minister Brandon Lewis has confirmed that the referendum trigger for council tax increases will remain at 2% as part of the final local government finance settlement for 2014/15.
Planned public spending cuts are less than half complete and government pledges made for the next parliament imply that even greater reductions will be needed beyond 2015, the Institute for Fiscal...
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has defended the government’s controversial Universal Credit benefit reforms, telling MPs he remained very confident the scheme would be successfully...
There are key questions about the beleaguered Universal Credit programme that Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith must answer when he appears before MPs today, the Institute for Government...
A committee of MPs has accused the Home Office of being ‘irresponsible’ for paying out more than £6.5m in staff bonuses in 2012/13 despite pressure to cut budgets across Whitehall.
Whitehall departments are failing to take forecasting seriously enough and the process is hampered by poor quality data and unrealistic assumptions, according to the National Audit Office.
Councils have been urged to back plans to create 39 local investment funds across England that could boost local third sector providers of public services.
Around £95m of public money is to be invested in Oxford to boost local growth, as part of the area’s City Deal, ministers announced today.
Oxford and its surrounding area will receive improvements to...
Economic migrants from outside the European Union should have to pay a £2,000 advance on National Insurance contributions when they enter the UK, a think-tank has recommended.