Tony Blair's vision of electronic services for all citizens is a long way from becoming reality, with government websites 'hit and miss', hard to navigate and 'disconnected', MPs have warned.
The Public Accounts Committee has rapped the former head of the Benefits Agency for his 'poor excuses' to taxpayers over inaccurate Jobseekers Allowance payments totalling £245.3m.
Alistair Darling's claim that the government is listening to pensioners fell on deaf ears this week as the National Pensioners' Convention demonstrated outside a conference on the over-50s where he...
Employment minister Margaret Hodge has revealed that the government is to set up four pilot schemes to examine ways of getting ill and disabled people off sickness benefits and back into work.
The expanded list of companies approved to supply services to failing local education authorities has been criticised by the Local Government Association and the National Union of Teachers.
The government must guarantee the future of rural post offices or face a further decline in countryside communities, a cross-party committee of MPs has warned.
The Audit Commission this week exposed 'unacceptable variations' in councils' charging policies for home care, and called on the government to produce formal guidance to ensure a more consistent...
The government should stop 'tinkering' with the funding of long-term care for the elderly and implement fundamental reforms that clearly state what levels of care pensioners can expect from public...
Labour reaffirmed its faith in the Private Finance Initiative this week when local government minister Hilary Armstrong unveiled 14 new schemes, totalling £300m.
Software supplier Microsoft and management consultant the Barony Group have launched a blueprint to help local authorities reach the government's targets for electronic delivery of services.
Health Secretary Alan Milburn launched a countrywide consultation programme with NHS staff and patients this week and said it should lead to a new Beveridge report that will shape the health service...
A committee of MPs has castigated the NHS Executive for its failure to manage investment in IT projects and warns that without a major 'sea change' its £1bn strategy will not deliver value for money.
Money meant for frontline council services is being used to fund an ever-burgeoning local government pension bill instead. Local authorities in England and Wales spent almost £2bn in 1998/99 on...
A blunder by civil servants of 'gargantuan proportions' has cost the Benefits Agency dear, with the government announcing that it is to lose all its policy and operational responsibility for pensions...
The Inland Revenue is likely to pursue a compensation claim against Andersen Consulting after a catalogue of delays with the new National Insurance Recording System has left it four years behind...
Best Value could unleash market testing of local authorities' financial services on a much greater scale than Compulsory Competitive Tendering achieved.
A new video featuring ethnic minority civil servants will be taken into local communities to try to change Whitehall's 'all white' image, Cabinet Office minister Mo Mowlam announced this week.
As the furore over the role of the Freedom Party in Austria's new coalition government continued this week, it was clear the administration will take a fiscal course designed to reduce the country's...
Public services in France faced severe disruption this week as the compulsory 35-hour working week became reality. February 1 was the due date for the introduction of the much-debated 'loi Aubry'...
The City of Naples' search for a private partner to relaunch the southern Italian spa resort of Terme di Agnano has been narrowed down to two Italian consortiums, both with interests in the leisure...
The NHS is failing to meet its New Deal target and there is evidence that a significant number of health service employers have yet to commit themselves to the initiative.
The government's attempts to modernise Whitehall were stepped up this week with the publication of the second report of the Public Services Productivity Panel.
A national intelligence unit set up by the government to attack organised benefit fraud is to combine the knowledge of the Inland Revenue, police and immigration authorities.
