New Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt is already under pressure from health service managers to maintain the record levels of NHS funding up to and beyond 2008.
One of Scotland's biggest and most controversial Private Finance Initiative projects, the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, is embroiled in a row over £30m in extra payments demanded by the operating...
Public bodies' use of private management consultants continued to expand rapidly in 2004, with payments to external advisers reaching £1.9bn, according to a new study.
Continuing problems with data management at the Department for Work and Pensions have left hundreds of millions of pounds in vital benefits unpaid, a new report has revealed.
The British Medical Association this week called for a change in attitudes in medical education after it revealed that more than a third of medical students have been the victims of bullying.
The cost of employing agency nurses and other temporary staff has fallen for the first time in recent years, according to a leading independent health care analyst.
Cost savings are the most readily identifiable outcome of government efficiency drives. But, as Craig Baker and Patrick Lord point out, it is vital to find ways in which to track equally important...
It's not just politicians who have a problem with trust. There's also declining confidence in public services. Alex Klaushofer asks whether reputation management is the answer
The Public Finance Public Servants of the Year Awards were presented last week at a glittering event in London. Editor Mike Thatcher describes the reactions of the team and individual winners and...
The Department of Health is to try to broker a deal in a long-running row over private firms' refusal to offer Agenda for Change to their staff working in the NHS, Public Finance has learned.
Would a civil service Act damage democracy and good government? Not according to the union leader representing Whitehall mandarins, who takes issue with arguments expressed in a recent PF feature
Politicians have been doing battle over the need for public sector efficiency savings. But councils are already teaming up with their neighbours and other public bodies to make major economies of...
Whatever the election outcome, the fate of the deputy prime minister's department hangs in the balance. Peter Hetherington predicts some delicate times ahead for the office running Whitehall-town...
Private and voluntary bodies could deliver almost a fifth of all public services by 2007, boosted by massive outsourcing plans across the defence, education and health sectors.
Improvements in high-profile NHS treatment areas such as cancer and heart disease are masking patient satisfaction problems elsewhere, according to patient research specialist the Picker Institute.
Cleaning is too often the invisible service. But Belbclean has put an end to that, boosting staff and teachers' morale alike by transforming school cleaning in Belfast. Paul Gosling reports
