Sir Simon Milton, the new chair of the Local Government Association, believes that there are local solutions to a range of issues, from health to housing, and he is determined to fight for more...
Restrictions on local authority borrowing have been gradually eased but one dinosaur law remains, which covers council companies and similar entities. Now its turn for reform has come in a new Bill
Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced an immediate review of NHS recruitment procedures after it emerged that all the suspects in the terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow had links to the health...
Town halls could be forced to scrap some bus services from 2008 because they face a multimillion pound deficit under Whitehall plans to extend free travel for pensioners.
Newly appointed local government minister John Healey has pledged to forge a 'new relationship' between central and local government and to devolve extensive powers to regional and local levels.
Taking the politics out of the NHS sounds like an attractive idea. But an independent board would be bad for democracy and bad for our health, argue George Jones and John Stewart
It's been a challenging week for Team Gordon, as the new PM and his Cabinet strive to show who's in charge. Peter Riddell assesses what all the ministerial changes mean
The new prime minister is an intellectual heavyweight, with strong views of his own on public policy. So where does this leave Britain's burgeoning think-tank industry? Peter Wilby reports on the...
Combating climate change is a colossal global challenge. But you have got to start somewhere. The LGIU's carbon trading scheme for councils points a way forward, as David Janner-Klausner explains
Voluntary sector organisations are still not on a level playing field with other public service providers, despite central government's efforts, auditors said last week.
Public bodies must slash the time it takes to provide services if the government is to become more responsive to citizens' needs, a minister admitted this week.
Migrant workers contribute more to the British economy than the costs of the public services they receive, according to a study by the Trades Union Congress.
Public sector regulators should promote a 'culture of curiosity' among service providers, the Audit Commission's chair, Michael O'Higgins, told delegates.
Computer glitches have been blamed for a substantial drop in council tax collection in 23 local authorities, leading to a loss of more than £26m from town hall budgets last year, Public Finance has...
The Local Government Association has published a 'prospectus' outlining what every high-performing council should be doing and detailing areas where more work is needed.
The public sector's experience of reorganisation is that it is never-ending and often unsuccessful. But it doesn't have to be that way, provided its leaders are willing to learn lessons from the...
Former chancellor Kenneth Clarke has stood for the Tory leadership three times but his failure has not dampened his political activism, he tells Joseph McHugh
The need to base public service reforms on market disciplines has been an uphill battle for the Labour government. But there really is no practicable alternative, argues Anthony Browne
Is New Labour's modernisation agenda for public services anywhere near endgame? Tony Travers surveys the progress so far and asks whether a Brown government should slow down or speed up the pace of...
Public service reform will grind to a halt under Gordon Brown's premiership as the Labour party lurches to the Left, shadow chancellor George Osborne argued in a speech this week.
Trade unions have hailed as 'long overdue' the government's announcement that it is to draw up a consistent pay and conditions framework for the support staff working in England's schools.
