Social care services might soon be opened to regulatory competition from across the European Union, if the Department of Trade and Industry gets its way, Public Finance has learnt.
NHS managers will not know what hit them. Despite government assurances that there would be no significant reorganisation following the general election,
Local government must step up its efficiency drive by adopting bigger and bolder strategies, the sector's procurement champion Tim Byles has told Public Finance.
The joint government/trade union body the Public Services Forum has swung into action to set up two panels to assess problematic sickness absence and diversity issues.
The government is on track to achieve its 2008 waiting time target but it must do more to ensure poorer people get access to care, the King's Fund said this week.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's review of the local government grant formula must take greater account of the extra cost of providing essential public services to far-flung rural...
For all the talk of a dramatic urban renaissance, population flight from Britain's city centres to suburbia and the countryside continues apace. Tony Travers explains what needs to be done to reverse...
The Scottish Parliament's health committee is to conduct an inquiry into the Executive's flagship legislation which provides free personal care for the elderly.
The CBI is warning the government that 'short termism' in its procurement practices is preventing external service providers from bidding for contracts and undermining provision, Public Finance has...
Sir Andrew Turnbull this week delivered his final speech as Cabinet secretary, calling for further Whitehall reforms and attacking critics who questioned civil service values under his stewardship.
Gordon Brown might mean what he says, but does he say what he means? The government's Alice in Wonderland approach to its Spending Review timings has a lot more to do with politics than economics
You wouldn't know it, but the NHS Plan had its fifth birthday this week. There were no celebrations and ministers ignored the occasion. So what ever happened to this 'once-in-a-lifetime' opportunity...
The Department of Health has abandoned plans to publish a white paper on adult social care, opting instead to incorporate it into broader proposals on integrated health and social care services...
The head of the government body set up to encourage private investment in primary care trust accommodation has confirmed that the government is 'pushing' the initiative as a way of increasing private...
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has pledged to continue the market reforms in the NHS by opening further sectors to private sector competition and increasing patient 'voice' within the system.
Teachers, doctors, nurses and police officers accounted for just 27% of the 585,000 rise in public sector employment between 1998 and 2004, according to a new study.
Senior mandarins fear that the government's secretive change to the legal status of special advisers, which came to light this week, will give spin doctors new powers over civil servants.
