Public Service Agreements were meant to keep track of what departments do with taxpayers' money. The problem is that no-one, least of all MPs, pays them much attention. Colin Talbot and Carole...
Spending on mental health care needs to rise by 50% in real terms if the government's ambitious policy framework is to be successfully implemented, campaigners are warning.
The Scottish Executive's consultation paper on public sector reform is little more than lightweight theorising, a leading public finance academic has said.
The social care inspectorate has called for an urgent national debate into whether or not the state should continue to provide preventative social care to disabled and frail adults.
Supporters say social enterprises marry private efficiency with public values, offering innovative low-cost, high-quality services. But a wider definition of value for money is needed to get the best...
'Choice-based letting' allows social housing applicants to choose where they want to live, rather than have officials decide for them. And soon it will be available in every English council. Neil...
Happy New Year. If you are an adult with a disability you now have two years left to receive preventative social care that could stop your condition deteriorating further, the Local Government...
Seventeen indebted NHS trusts whose income was capped under the transition to payment by results are now eligible for additional financial support in 2007/08, the Department of Health has said.
Patients in some parts of England face longer waits for routine surgery as primary care trusts claw back deficits in the final three months of the financial year.
The Scottish Executive is on track to achieve 97% of the pledges it made when a partnership agreement was drawn up between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, First Minister Jack McConnell has claimed.
Well done to all of you who took part your comprehensive knowledge of the news is impressive. Particular congratulations to our winner Sue Alliott at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea,...
With a Brown premiership predicted for any time soon, all bets are off as to what it will mean for one of Blair's most cherished 'legacy' issues public service reform. Tony Travers hacks through a...
The main reason why so many big outsourcing contracts run aground is the lack of any sort of mechanism to solve disputes before they get out of hand, argues Mark Amsden. But there is a wealth of...
No sooner had Chancellor Gordon Brown finished adding up his promised £36bn investment in education over the next four years than the economists were asking the inevitable question: 'How much of that...
The chancellor whoever that might be in 2007 will have to conjure up a way of meeting expensive government commitments while implementing a tight public spending squeeze in the years ahead
The Department of Health has admitted that the financial regime governing NHS trusts is unsustainable, yet has declined to implement an Audit Commission recommendation to correct it.
There must be no back-pedalling on reform as the health service seeks to recover financial balance, NHS chief executive David Nicholson told the Healthcare Financial Management Association annual...
Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell and a senior adviser to the prime minister this week urged Whitehall to focus on a four-pronged plan to improve public services amid further evidence that...
Services for older people are 'teetering on the brink', Local Government Association chair Lord Sandy Bruce-Lockhart was due to tell the House of Lords on December 7.
Tackling antisocial behaviour costs taxpayers £3.4bn a year, but half of all antisocial behaviour orders are breached and some towns are dogged by perceived threats of yobbish acts, a study has...
Inaccuracies in the way hospitals code the activities they perform to bill primary care trusts 'undermines' the payment by results regime, the Audit Commission has warned.
