Seventy per cent of senior civil servants could develop advanced financial management skills under Treasury proposals to prevent the sort of budget problems experienced by NHS trusts.
You can't put a price on education but you can do a lot to narrow the gap between the best- and worst-off pupils. Tash Shifrin reports on efforts to involve the private sector in raising school...
A future Conservative government should curtail school selection and establish a 'very different agenda' to the vouchers policy on which the party fought the last election, shadow education secretary...
Whitehall departments should look upon their fledgling inspection regime as an opportunity to learn and improve, the new finance chief at the Department for Education and Skills said this week.
Northern Ireland's finance department has begun procurement for the supply of 'Network NI' a managed, wide-area network that ministers say is central to the modernisation of public services.
New nuclear reactors the clean, green answer to the UK's growing energy problems, or expensive, hazardous white elephants? The government appears to have made its mind up, and is rewriting local...
The Lyons Inquiry will have to find a way to make council tax fairer without the benefit of a revaluation of English homes. Peter Kenway and Ines Newman go back to basic principles and explain how...
The Conservatives have not just got a new logo but a brand new set of policies. Both might be a bit sketchy, but have they got the potential to grow into something more meaningful? Alex Klaushofer...
Gordon Brown's plans to devolve more executive power offer a real chance of opening up debate over government spending, starting with the Comprehensive Spending Review. But Colin Talbot somehow...
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has removed the symbolic ceiling on private sector involvement in the NHS but has also conceded an important element of finance policy that experts say will curtail...
As the Labour Party gathers for a tumultuous annual conference, Madeleine Bunting and Simon Parker ask what almost ten years of Blairism has really meant for public services. And how can New Labour...
Local and central government are under intense scrutiny, as a plethora of inquiries and reviews get set to report by the end of the year. But with near-civil war gripping the government, how likely...
Certain services and lower-value contracts have always been exempt from the European Union's procurement directive. But fresh guidance now requires even these to be publicly advertised
Ahead of this week's TUC conference, the chancellor has made clear there will be a 2% cap on public sector pay rises. And with NHS deficits being widely blamed on inflationary pay deals, he is...
As many as one in ten local authorities might have population figures that are flawed, the senior government statistician in charge of compiling them has admitted to Public Finance .
Social care leaders have dismissed the government's claim that there is no need to compensate the sector for the extra responsibilities it has taken on through NHS 'cost shunting'.
'Co-production' is the latest big idea buzzing round Whitehall, with the aim of involving citizens more in the design and delivery of local public services. But, as Vivienne Russell discovered, there...
Almost a decade since the Single Status Agreement on equal pay was signed, many councils have yet to put it into practice and others have run into legal challenges and financial hurdles. Now time is...
The Local Government Association has called for an additional £28m in central funding to councils to help them co-ordinate carbon emission reduction commitments, following the government's Energy...
The government wants savings, and e-auctions could help to deliver them. They save time, money and encourage joined-up working, if used in the right context, as Justin Pugsley explains
Having been quick to judge the rest of the public sector, Whitehall now faces similar scrutiny. And it hasn't fared well. Colin Talbot looks at the impact of capability reviews and applies his own...
High levels of public spending are exacerbating regional economic disparities and leading to dependency on central government handouts in some areas, according to a free market think-tank, Reform.
Councils are warning that they are being starved of vital resources to fund basic services because of the government's inability to produce accurate immigration figures.
