Councillors will be allowed to address local meetings on issues in which they have a personal interest, under plans floated this week by Local Government Secretary Ruth Kelly.
Are decades of planning laws about to be reversed in a free-for-all that will carpet England's green belts with out-of-town megastores? Peter Hetherington weighs up the evidence on the Barker review
Government plans to effectively close the London headquarters of the Office for National Statistics are ill-conceived and will cause 'severe risks' to future data, senior staff have warned.
Public sector bodies look set to face new rules and responsibilities as part of the government's attempt to cut carbon emissions. Proposals now out for consultation offer both challenges and...
The local government white paper promised a bright new future for 'radical and devolutionary reform'. But the process has already been short-circuited, argues Tim Thorogood
Well done to all of you who took part your comprehensive knowledge of the news is impressive. Particular congratulations to our winner Sue Alliott at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea,...
With a Brown premiership predicted for any time soon, all bets are off as to what it will mean for one of Blair's most cherished 'legacy' issues public service reform. Tony Travers hacks through a...
Tackling antisocial behaviour costs taxpayers £3.4bn a year, but half of all antisocial behaviour orders are breached and some towns are dogged by perceived threats of yobbish acts, a study has...
Ed Balls, the economic secretary to the Treasury, has challenged other European countries to follow the UK's lead and set up robust accounting procedures for the spending of European Union funds.
Local government faces fresh strike action in the New Year after the government announced pension scheme reforms deemed unacceptable by trade unions, Public Finance has been told.
The chief executive of the NHS in Wales has called for an end to deficits in the principality's health boards and trusts and challenged finance professionals to exert greater influence and leadership.
Public cash to support regional economic development should be targeted at northern cities, a leading think-tank has claimed, despite new research indicating that the UK's North-South divide is...
Launching the report of his inquiry into local government finance in Scotland, Sir Peter Burt the current chair of ITV repeated several times what he saw as a main attraction of his proposed new...
The Revenue and Customs department this week launched a £2.5bn review that will initiate thousands more civil service job cuts and close offices across the UK over the next five years.
Joint reviews of social services in Wales place huge demands on local authorities but are leading to improvements in services, according to an independent evaluation.
Up to a quarter of government grants designed to attract businesses into deprived areas have to be returned as firms fail to keep their promises to bring new jobs and investment into the area,...
Wales was always bound to go its own distinctive way on the issue of public service reform. Now, as the Welsh Assembly Government prepares to respond to his review, Sir Jeremy Beecham explains why
It's one thing to demand that local authorities prove they have achieved desired outcomes, but quite another to do it. Arthur Midwinter argues for a more realistic approach to performance measurement...
Plans to increase benefit payments to single parents seeking work will have a limited impact because little is being done to keep them in the labour market, a former welfare minister has warned.
Some depressed areas of the UK are set to lose out under a shake-up in EU regional aid. But how much of a problem is this? As Sally Gainsbury reports, the grants scheme has been something of a mixed...
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...
