Decisions over benefit payments should be localised and welfare spending incorporated into pooled area-based budgets, the government has been told today
Not all cuts have to be bad, sometimes you can get more for less – and that’s particularly the case with procurement, argues Paul O'Brien. Some councils have already found new ways
to make the most...
David Cameron's Big Society could radically change the way services are delivered, and help councils empower communities. But the bad news for the chancellor is that it's unlikely to save much money...
A decisive shift towards Total Place-style budgeting is widely expected to be included in next month’s Comprehensive Spending Review, Public Finance has learned.
Plans to replace police authorities with directly elected police and crime commissioners came under renewed fire today after it was claimed that the move would cost £101m
Council leaders warned the government today that a combination of grant cuts and increasing demand for services could leave them with a funding gap of up to £20bn a year by 2014/15
Ministers have hugely ambitious infrastructure plans. The only problem is they don't intend to pay for them. With capital spending being cut at an unprecedented rate, can the private sector step up...
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt today told MPs that his ministry will have to be ‘more imaginative than any other department in Whitehall’ in seeking to slash its costs by half.
The government will review local government finance 'this time next year', Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles told an influential group of MPs this week.
Scotland's rival political parties have united in talks aimed at persuading the Ministry of Defence not to go ahead with proposals to cut the UK's £37bn defence budget
The government has been managing expectations of next month’s Comprehensive Spending Review since June’s emergency Budget, and voters now know to expect incredibly harsh settlements for the services...
The Unite union has told Prime Minister David Cameron that councils have already axed vital services such as meals on wheels and social care provision for elderly people as they prepare for spending...
Opponents of the government's spending cuts must marshal an intellectual case for an alternative, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress said today
The Welsh Local Government Association has warned that the public sector cuts to be announced next month put Wales at greater risk of returning to recession.
Social housing provider Lovell has paid £28m to acquire the majority of Connaught Partnerships' social housing contracts and assets, it was announced today
The public accepts the need for huge
cuts in the Spending Review, as long as
they minimise any sacrifices and consider long-term effects. Jon Sibson explains
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg claimed this morning that much of the coalition government’s spending plans are ‘not radically different’ from those of the previous government.
Rival politicians and the entire public sector in Scotland need to put aside their differences in an unprecedented effort to save £3.7bn over the next four years, MSPs have been told
