There's much to please local authorities in the white paper, particularly in terms of deregulation and decentralisation. But real devolution, letting councils decide local priorities, is still a long...
Town hall leaders are demanding that devolution must underpin the Bills of the next parliamentary session, as the prime minister used the last Queen's Speech of his tenure to outline a far-reaching...
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...
Department of Health plans to limit the demand for hospital care by elderly people by providing better preventative community care will not work, the results of a pilot study suggest.
Far from being on its way out, the Private Finance Initiative has never been in ruder health. As well as strengthening its role in health and education, it is elbowing its way into new areas such as...
Local authorities, central government and parents must broaden their sights in the fight against antisocial behaviour and focus on prevention as well as punishment, Whitehall's 'respect' czar...
The white paper is done and dusted. Now it's time for Sir Michael Lyons to put some financial meat on the bare bones of local government reform. He should focus on capping, council tax and the...
Police authorities have reacted with anger and disappointment to the costs paid by central government following the abandonment of the police merger programme.
For years, the NHS has been living off the fat of the land. But now, lean times are almost upon it, and managers need to look for far greater efficiency savings, says Noel Plumridge
A surge in new medical treatments combined with an ageing population mean the demands on the NHS are set to rise just as it faces a financial squeeze. A co-payments system, with built-in protection...
In many ways, the NHS has never had it so good. But that's not what the public thinks. Public Finance and Deloitte convened a round table of health service policy makers and practitioners to explore...
Local government needs to be bold if it is to make the most of the opportunities presented by Local Area Agreements, a senior manager in the sector said last week.
The economic case for joint working in the public sector must be clearly established before plans for shared services are implemented, leading finance officials in Scotland have advised.
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...
'The LGA's 'root and branch' review of its work needs to urge the association away from its comfort zone in the Whitehall village, argue George Jones and John Stewart. Instead it should prioritise...
English cities should be empowered to drive forward their own economic plans, with greater control over transport, planning and skills, according to government-commissioned research.
The DoH claims that 'reconfiguration' of NHS services is all about improving clinical care. Critics says it's just to balance the books. Either way there are widespread protests against hospital...
MPs and campaigners have warned that proposed changes to the way government processes freedom of information requests could seriously weaken the effectiveness of the legislation.
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...
