In 2003, angry pensioners were taking to the streets as council tax soared, unchecked by government. This year, ministers cracked the whip and councils meekly complied. Tony Travers explains what's...
NHS trusts' financial planning was in disarray this week as an embarrassed Department of Health was forced to withdraw the 2006/07 price list used in payment by results.
Productivity in the NHS is at best stagnant, despite the record sums of money invested in the health service by the government, figures from the Office for National Statistics show.
David Rowland, the permanent secretary at the Department for Transport, has been asked by the Treasury to co-ordinate Whitehall's latest attempt at a multi-billion pound savings drive through shared...
In a week when the Women and Work Commission found gender inequality to be very much alive, the EOC chair tells Sally Gainsbury about the equality challenges facing the public sector
Not for Scotland the path well trodden. While Westminster endorses market-based public service reforms, the Scottish Executive is ploughing its own furrow on education, health and immigration. Iain...
The government needs to put its house in order over how it approaches its much-publicised efficiency drive or it may find that the result is to make the public sector even less effective than it was...
Public sector staff worked £9.1bn worth of unpaid overtime last year, with those taking on additional work providing the equivalent of an extra day each week, according to research published this...
NHS health boards in Scotland are to receive an above-inflation average funding increase of 7.25%, bringing their allocation to £6.5bn, Health Minister Andy Kerr announced this week.
Much of Whitehall's reform agenda is incompatible with its current constitutional position a situation that could be solved by a Civil Service Act, according to the sector's former appointments...
The NHS Confederation has called for a renewed focus on the treatment of chronic diseases after research revealed that repeated emergency hospital admissions cost the health service £2.3bn a year.
More than half of the savings made under Whitehall's efficiency agenda have effectively been wiped out by an unexpected rise in the cost of staff pensions across two sectors this year, it has emerged.
First Minister Jack McConnell hinted at the prospect of a reorganisation of local government in Scotland as local authorities set council tax levels with an average rise of 3.3%.
& is a problem halved. But not when public bodies can't agree on the best ways to collaborate. Judy Hirst explains why sharing services is so hard to do
The Private Finance Initiative has never been a free lunch for the NHS. Now even the Treasury seems to be losing its appetite for large PFI hospital schemes. Noel Plumridge explains why
The government's white paper on health has outlined how it proposes to tackle inequalities of care, but fudges some crucial issues over funding and provision, which may undermine its effectiveness
The introduction of payment by results has put large capital building programmes under the spotlight, as it becomes clear that the new finance system will struggle to pay for long-term PFI...
As struggling NHS trusts face a year of even more cost pressures, targets, efficiency savings and payment by results, they will have to use every wile they can to attract patients. Seamus Ward...
Almost half of nursing and care homes for older and disabled people fail to meet the national minimum standards on administering residents' prescription medicines, the Commission for Social Care...
