As the Conservatives gear up for their Blackpool conference next week, they face their most important leadership contest in more than 40 years. Philip Johnston analyses the policies behind the beauty...
The Liberal Democrat leadership this week called on members to support a bold range of new policy proposals designed to give the party a real chance of electoral success by the end of the decade.
The architect of Whitehall's £40bn savings plan believes ministers will seek to achieve public sector efficiencies beyond the target date of 2008 because of the political imperative to restrain...
Can you only feel the public service ethos if you are employed by the public sector? Of course not, says Ann Rossiter. It all depends on the values of the service provider
They call him the 'smiling assassin' and he's certainly ruthless about improving education. DfES permanent secretary Sir David Normington talks to Maria McHale about his role and rumours of an...
New Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has told local government leaders that he will be urging central government departments to allow local authorities more flexibility in the way they spend their...
Whitehall should be subject to a performance inspection regime similar to the one already in place for local government, the head of the Office of Government Commerce said this week.
The London bombings are putting long-established 'community cohesion' policies to the test and threatening to hijack them in the name of a quick fix for terrorism.
The legislative process needs to be pared down and made subject to 'sunset clauses' if more trust is to be built up between central and local government, argue George Jones and John Stewart
John Hutton, the government minister for public service reform, last week vowed that central targets would continue, despite mounting criticism from local councils and think-tanks such as the Social...
Local government leaders threw down a challenge to ministers this week, volunteering to take on a range of tough new responsibilities in exchange for greater freedom from central regulation.
A shake-up of policing in London could be jeopardised because the funds it needs have been swallowed up by the extra costs arising from the terrorist attacks on July 7 and 21, Public Finance has...
A new dawn of co-operation between central and local government broke this week as Education Secretary Ruth Kelly indicated her willingness to work closely with councils on her planned education...
At least 19 private developers will be invited to make detailed bids for grant after reaching the Housing Corporation's short list of organisations hoping to build affordable homes during the next...
New Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has indicated that he could tighten up Whitehall's decision-making to help restore trust in the machinery of government.
Current UK procurement rules were drawn up decades before the Internet existed and globalisation took off. Now draft regulations aim to bring these up to date and put a new EU directive into effect
As the TUC and government square up for their annual seaside contest, ministers face a movement riven with divisions and agonising about its future. Judy Hirst predicts tough times ahead for public...
It's difficult to see local government as the stuff of good theatre. But David Edgar's play uses infighting at a failing council to make some trenchant points about democracy. Joseph McHugh reports
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has asked local government pension funds to recalculate the disputed cost of revoking last April's increase in the scheme's retirement age to 65.
Finally, a hospital waiting time target that should genuinely help patients. But can the tough new plan to cut the time from GP referral to treatment to 18 weeks be achieved? Anthony Harrison and...
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's review of the local government grant formula must take greater account of the extra cost of providing essential public services to far-flung rural...
For all the talk of a dramatic urban renaissance, population flight from Britain's city centres to suburbia and the countryside continues apace. Tony Travers explains what needs to be done to reverse...
Sir Gus O'Donnell is soon to take over the Whitehall hot seat newly vacated by Sir Andrew Turnbull. Will he follow in his reforming steps or take a different path? Mark Conrad finds out
