NHS foundation trusts lead the way in recovering from deficits but their immediate future looks less promising, according to foundation trust regulator Monitor.
Local authorities have made efficiency savings, yet ever-increasing social care demands continue to put pressure on their budgets. It's time to come up with a fair and sustainable system of funding
Next week's Budget looks like being a return to form for the chancellor, thanks to a big rise in tax receipts. But is he on course to hit his political as well as economic targets? Peter Riddell...
The proposed Planning Gain Supplement threatens to remove rather than strengthen the powers of local authorities that need to expand housing, while allowing central government to divert the cash...
The government's goal of 50% participation in higher education is still a long way off. And top-up fees could make a bad situation worse, particularly for working-class students. Stephen Court...
In 2003, angry pensioners were taking to the streets as council tax soared, unchecked by government. This year, ministers cracked the whip and councils meekly complied. Tony Travers explains what's...
Treasury officials will shortly report to Chancellor Gordon Brown on the financial implications of devolving new powers to city-regions, as the local government reform agenda took another firm step...
Ministers have secured sufficient support to see the education Bill over its first parliamentary hurdle but further battles are likely, education experts predict.
The Department of Trade and Industry's Women and Work Commission has urged the government to consider seriously allowing class actions in equal pay cases.
NHS trusts' financial planning was in disarray this week as an embarrassed Department of Health was forced to withdraw the 2006/07 price list used in payment by results.
David Rowland, the permanent secretary at the Department for Transport, has been asked by the Treasury to co-ordinate Whitehall's latest attempt at a multi-billion pound savings drive through shared...
The government hates it and wants to avoid it at all costs. But there's no getting away from local party politics in a representative democracy, argue George Jones and John Stewart. It needs to be...
In a week when the Women and Work Commission found gender inequality to be very much alive, the EOC chair tells Sally Gainsbury about the equality challenges facing the public sector
Not for Scotland the path well trodden. While Westminster endorses market-based public service reforms, the Scottish Executive is ploughing its own furrow on education, health and immigration. Iain...
Much of Whitehall's reform agenda is incompatible with its current constitutional position a situation that could be solved by a Civil Service Act, according to the sector's former appointments...
Social mobility has stalled, despite the government's best efforts to raise the aspirations of children from working-class homes. Effective reform of local services will be crucial to turning this...
The government needs to put its house in order over how it approaches its much-publicised efficiency drive or it may find that the result is to make the public sector even less effective than it was...
