As the UK rushes to improve the skills of its workforce, a door has opened for more private sector involvement in further and higher education. Is this filling a gap or taking over at the expense of...
Improving access to English lessons is one of the most useful steps councils can take to ensure migrant workers are better integrated into their communities, the local government watchdog said this...
US-style healthcare schemes are increasingly being imported into the NHS. But do they work on UK soil? Opinion is sharply divided within the medical profession and beyond. Seamus Ward investigates
Public bodies are well versed in EU procurement rules, which require various services to be put out to tender. But recent European Court judgments have muddied the water. Norman Ballantyne explains
Despite record levels of investment, the public sector is seen to be in crisis. This is because services are suffering from having simplistic market models foisted on them, argues Unison's general...
The scale of the impending cutbacks in public spending have been starkly illustrated this week as independent experts warned that the government will have to choose between cutting child poverty and...
Whitehall health officials this week conceded that they have taken on board the lessons of a failed hospital development after senior MPs slammed the project's management.
Civil servants across the UK have begun a two-week overtime 'ban' after disrupting tax office, jobcentre and customs services this week with a 24-hour strike over job cuts, privatisations and pay.
'Thinking the unthinkable' is a term synonymous with New Labour's rather self-aggrandising approach to policy reform yet the reality is that some ministers have been marginalised for obliging with...
Nobody was too surprised by the government's plan to create a new agency to take charge of housing and regeneration in England within the next two years.
The public would prefer health service managers made decisions about which treatments should be offered by the NHS, rather than MPs or local councillors, according to an NHS Confederation survey.
Government attempts to tackle child obesity have involved much 'dithering and confusion' and 'little co-ordination', the Commons Public Accounts Committee has found.
The government is considering the introduction of a single benefit payment for people of working age, a move that would initiate the most radical restructuring of welfare income for decades.
Who would have thought it? NHS Resource Accounting and Budgeting has suddenly got the media excited. And there's plenty more fancy footwork where that came from. Andy McKeon explains how the Rab...
There should be no limits in future to the role that private and voluntary sector organisations can play in delivering public services, the prime minister has declared.
Councillors will be allowed to address local meetings on issues in which they have a personal interest, under plans floated this week by Local Government Secretary Ruth Kelly.
Hospitals' attempts to recover financial balance are leading to longer waits at accident and emergency departments, the British Medical Association said this week.
Social care minister Ivan Lewis has responded to last week's damning report on social care for older people by calling for a 'new, fair settlement' between the state and individuals.
Audit Commission chief executive Steve Bundred has denied he is disappointed that the Department of Health declined his advice to repay financial penalties levied against overspending hospitals.
The local government white paper promised a bright new future for 'radical and devolutionary reform'. But the process has already been short-circuited, argues Tim Thorogood
