Parents' fundraising activities are helping to supplement the purchase of core school equipment, the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations claimed this week.
Local authorities have forced the Revenue & Customs department into a U-turn over plans to standardise the tax rates paid by councils when settling backdated equal pay claims.
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...
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are meant to be as one on the need for radical public sector reform. But as Blair embarks on one of his last Party conferences as PM, his quest for a legacy is bringing...
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...
Senior local government figures queued up to criticise the government this week after David Miliband announced that the council tax revaluation exercise was being shelved and the Lyons funding...
The National Union of Teachers has welcomed the Department for Education and Skills' hardline approach to school absenteeism, which will target the parents of 8,000 'serial truants'.
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.
Public bodies, such as NHS trusts and colleges, are now eligible to defer payment of millions of pounds in VAT, following a European Court of Justice ruling.
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
The Commission for Social Care Inspection has condemned the government's plans to move its children's services remit to an enlarged Ofsted as 'incoherent', 'illogical' and 'dangerous'.
The rules of the much-debated Private Finance Initiative game are about to change. The Office for National Statistics is soon expected to start counting a new tranche of PFI deals against public...
Senior trade unionists have called on Chancellor Gordon Brown to make good his commitment to the 2004 Warwick accord, amid concerns that public employers are using a loophole in the two-tier...
Social landlords are being sold short by the government in their attempts to build sustainable communities, the new leader of England's housing associations warned this week.
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.
City academies must not be allowed to opt out of co-operation with other schools in their area, head teachers warned this week as the prime minister announced an acceleration in the programme.
The London bombings are putting long-established 'community cohesion' policies to the test and threatening to hijack them in the name of a quick fix for terrorism.
The legislative process needs to be pared down and made subject to 'sunset clauses' if more trust is to be built up between central and local government, argue George Jones and John Stewart
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...
