Four London boroughs are being forced to cut the discounts they offer council tenants who buy their homes through the right to buy scheme, despite telling Whitehall they want to retain existing...
Education Secretary Charles Clarke has admitted that the national curriculum is suffering, particularly in sports and modern languages, because teachers are too focused on targets.
Speaking on...
The government is to delegate responsibility for checking potential workers' identities to 'registered bodies' such as local authorities in an attempt to overhaul the beleaguered Criminal Records...
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....
As the fallout from the Audit Commission's damning report on NHS waiting lists gathers pace, health management bodies have called for immediate action by ministers to prevent a 'witch-hunt' that...
The next 12 months could make or break the government's public services reform agenda, the new leader of the union movement has warned.
In an interview with Public Finance , Brendan Barber, who...
Almost 1,000 teaching assistants made legal history this week when their union lodged the biggest equal pay claim to be made in Europe.
Unison has lodged the claim with an employment tribunal in...
Capita, the business services group, said it expected to double its revenue from transport projects in 2003, following the apparent success of the London congestion charging scheme.
Despite a...
The row over the education 'passporting' fiasco escalated this week, when the Local Government Association accused Charles Clarke of effectively ringfencing cash from council tax rises.
A letter...
The Liberal Democrats outlined their alternative 'cash-back' Budget this week, pledging free care for the elderly and the abolition of tuition and top-up fees for students, but no increases in public...
Ian Pearson, Northern Ireland's interim finance minister during the suspension of the Assembly, has announced a £2bn spending programme under the Reinvestment and Reform Initiative agreed last year...
Students faced with the prospect of student debt are heading for northern universities at the expense of London, according to figures from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service....
The government has stepped up its drive to recruit more nurses, doctors and health professionals by announcing that an additional £3.4bn is to be invested in 8,000 new training places in the NHS....
The National Union of Teachers has accused Education Secretary Charles Clarke of 'bully-boy' tactics after he declined an invitation to speak at its annual conference.
Clarke said the education...
Ofsted, the schools' inspectorate, has insisted that it will meet its March deadline to inspect and register all childminders and nurseries, despite a growing backlog of checks.
A spokeswoman told...
Charles Clarke's determination to force two councils to 'passport' education funds is nothing short of a unilateral declaration of independence against the rest of Whitehall, the chief executive of...
Local authorities are locked in talks with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister over whether they should slash the discounts on offer to council tenants under the right to buy scheme.
Lower...
The government has backed down from its plans to introduce a category of advanced schools.
Education Secretary Charles Clarke said a new specialist system would be created instead, with all schools...
The controller of the Audit Commission has hit out at the government for pressurising the watchdog to penalise certain councils in the Comprehensive Performance Assessments published last December...
? ??ew Foster, the outgoing controller of the Audit Commission, talks to Mike Thatcher
Vincent Square will be a much quieter place when Sir Andrew Foster finally moves on later this year. The...
New freedoms to enable patients to get speedier treatment must be backed up with extra support for elderly and vulnerable patients, according to Help the Aged.
This week Health Secretary Alan...
Teachers will leave the profession if the government imposes the 2.9% pay rise recommended by the School Teachers' Review Body last week, the National Union of Teachers has warned.
The union...
Local authorities were this week puzzling over how to pay for a government plan to put cafés, crèches and web experts in every public library.
Arts minister Tessa Blackstone,...
The government faces a 'significant obstacle' to its aim of achieving a world-class education system because too many young people are still being failed by poor schools.
Public bodies have given the thumbs-up to the government's plan to merge the accounting profession's watchdogs into one 'super-regulator' following a year-long review of the sector.
