Salaries for Whitehall directors rose by 7.4% last year almost twice the rate as for the rest of the UK's workforce. But some executives have been rewarded despite poor performances, critics have...
Delegates to next week's annual social services conference are still reeling from the last round of organisational shake-ups. Now there is more change on the way, with a new children's green paper...
New Audit Commission chair Michael O'Higgins is quietly determined to turn up the heat on his inspectors to ensure they stay in touch. And he is no slouch in the kitchen either, as he tells Joseph...
The payment by results tariff and other information needed to create financial plans for 2007/08 will be published before Christmas, according to Richard Douglas, the Department of Health's director...
The Home Office has undervalued the cost of its controversial ID card scheme, critics have warned, despite ministers' claims this week that it would cost taxpayers £5.4bn over ten years.
The public should be able to influence the quality of services through the greater use of choice mechanisms such as the NHS's payment by results, the new chair of the Audit Commission has told...
A future Conservative government should curtail school selection and establish a 'very different agenda' to the vouchers policy on which the party fought the last election, shadow education secretary...
The European Court of Justice has 'left the door wide open' for employees to challenge public sector bodies that reward long-serving staff with higher salaries, human resources experts are warning.
Fears over job security might prompt community nurses to leave the NHS following this week's rationalisation of primary care trusts, according to the Royal College of Nursing.
The chancellor and the NHS are on a collision course with unions after suggesting that next year's pay rises should not break the government's 2% inflation target.
Northern Ireland's finance department has begun procurement for the supply of 'Network NI' a managed, wide-area network that ministers say is central to the modernisation of public services.
Many public sector managers believe they are being prevented from doing their jobs effectively because of red tape, a lack of resources and poor support from employers, according to the Chartered...
Whitehall's largest trade union this week raised fears that skilled government IT jobs could shortly be transferred abroad, after a leading contractor announced compulsory redundancies.
New nuclear reactors the clean, green answer to the UK's growing energy problems, or expensive, hazardous white elephants? The government appears to have made its mind up, and is rewriting local...
Union leaders are warning the government that it faces losing the next general election unless it radically rethinks its policy on public services and halts the march towards marketisation.
Pressure is mounting on the European Commission to publish a legal framework establishing the limits to which public services must abide by its rules on free market competition.
The Conservatives have not just got a new logo but a brand new set of policies. Both might be a bit sketchy, but have they got the potential to grow into something more meaningful? Alex Klaushofer...
The Liberal Democrats successfully shrugged off their image as a high tax-and-spend party after members endorsed radical proposals that shift the focus of taxation from income to wealth and pollution.
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has removed the symbolic ceiling on private sector involvement in the NHS but has also conceded an important element of finance policy that experts say will curtail...
Almost 3,500 public sector care home places for elderly and disabled people were lost last year and fewer than one third were replaced by independent provision, a report says.
Sickness absence rates across the civil service rose last year, despite a blizzard of Whitehall initiatives to tackle the problem, the Cabinet Office has revealed.
The Treasury wants to cut costs, and police pay is on the hit list. That means officers could be paid less for doing more. And in these dangerous times, the performance ramifications could be very...
As the Labour Party gathers for a tumultuous annual conference, Madeleine Bunting and Simon Parker ask what almost ten years of Blairism has really meant for public services. And how can New Labour...
