A hastily introduced sentencing policy is damaging the criminal justice system by overcrowding Britain's jails and reintroducing the miseries of asylums within prisons, a study has claimed.
Health sector trade unions were this week expecting a breakthrough in negotiations with employers over an improved pay offer that could prevent strikes across the NHS.
Housing is back at the top of the political agenda, with a green paper promising to solve the affordable housing crisis. But how is the new prime minister going to square a return to social rented...
Business leaders have warned that the private sector is receiving mixed signals from the Department of Health over the future role it can play in the NHS.
In the early days of New Labour, the Private Finance Initiative was seen as the only game in town for funding major public sector projects, but the Metronet crisis could mean the game is up, writes...
An intense focus on outcomes is essential if the public sector is to deliver real value, says Geoffrey Filkin. Here he argues that government can achieve better performance without committing extra...
Health Secretary Alan Johnson pledged to improve the convenience and accessibility of GP care this week, after it emerged that patients in deprived areas and those from ethnic minorities were the...
Gordon Brown's new ministerial team has ditched plans to create 'mega-contractors' that would enjoy lucrative regional monopolies in the forthcoming privatisation of jobseeker programmes.
When Gordon Brown first got his feet under the table at the Treasury way back in 1997 he promised to hit the ground running. Ten years on and his protégé Ed Balls has wasted no time in...
Patients attending independent sector treatment centres are safe, but it is impossible to say how their care compares with the NHS as the centres systematically fail to provide the relevant data, the...
The chief medical officer for England and Wales, Sir Liam Donaldson, has used his annual report to call for 'raided' public health funds to be restored.
It's time to step up the fight against global warming. Local government has been leading the way but now it must help an increasingly concerned public to do its bit. The best way is through...
The delivery of flagship skills programmes remains on track despite the decision to split the former Department for Education and Skills in two, a senior education official claimed this week.
Councils and other public service leaders rushed to unpick the substance of the government's forthcoming legislative plans as the prime minister broke with tradition and set out much of his programme.
Elderly people in some areas of England are 160 times more likely to receive NHS continuing care than others, startling figures published on July 13 reveal.
Councils and their partners need to make clear who disgruntled citizens should complain to about jointly delivered services, the local government ombudsman said this week.
The government's Health and Safety Executive is set to relocate hundreds of posts from London to Merseyside as part of a Whitehall plan to cut civil service numbers and costs, Public Finance can...
New Health Secretary Alan Johnson is launching a much-needed charm offensive starting with a clinician-led NHS review. Seamus Ward assesses the chances of tackling the problems stacking up in his...
Sir Simon Milton, the new chair of the Local Government Association, believes that there are local solutions to a range of issues, from health to housing, and he is determined to fight for more...
Restrictions on local authority borrowing have been gradually eased but one dinosaur law remains, which covers council companies and similar entities. Now its turn for reform has come in a new Bill
Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced an immediate review of NHS recruitment procedures after it emerged that all the suspects in the terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow had links to the health...
