Police forces reacted with a mixture of delight and dismay after Home Secretary Charles Clarke set out merger plans for three more English regions this week.
Auditors this week called on Whitehall departments to improve the data underpinning crucial government targets amid fears that more than half of Public Service Agreements are flawed.
Yes, the government missed its 2004/05 target for reducing the number of children in poverty but it has made some heartening progress towards the overall goal. Ian Kearns explains what it needs to...
In this increasingly litigious society, local authorities have become used to being sued for everything from cracked pavements to housing problems. But is there now a new and serious threat to be...
Unison has requested a judicial review of the government's proposed amendments to the Local Government Pension Scheme, saying its figures and reasoning are 'flawed' and 'absurd'.
In 2003, angry pensioners were taking to the streets as council tax soared, unchecked by government. This year, ministers cracked the whip and councils meekly complied. Tony Travers explains what's...
In a week when the Women and Work Commission found gender inequality to be very much alive, the EOC chair tells Sally Gainsbury about the equality challenges facing the public sector
Police forces are under pressure to merge and modernise and they're not coming quietly. Vivienne Russell weighs up the evidence in the debate over how to make twenty-first century policing fit...
Town halls are on course for average council tax increases of 4% well within the government's 5% capping threshold but still ahead of the rate of inflation.
The Crown Prosecution Service needs to modernise its systems urgently, a senior MP said this week after government auditors revealed the waste of £24m through poor case management.
Whitehall's counter-terrorism strategy since the London bombings has focused on reducing risks, but communicating that to the public has proved difficult.
& is a problem halved. But not when public bodies can't agree on the best ways to collaborate. Judy Hirst explains why sharing services is so hard to do
Paul Coen, the incoming chief executive of the Local Government Association, has vowed to forge closer links between local agencies as the spur to achieving improvements in public services.
Critics of local government's structure need look no further than Durham to support their case against two-tier councils. Would a unitary approach across England produce less confusion, while...
More than £9.3m a year could be saved if prisoners deemed suitable for electronic tagging as a condition of early release were sent home when eligible, government auditors said this week.
Voluntary organisations can reach parts that monolithic public services can't even get close to. And the government is waking up to their importance in areas such as employment services and welfare...
Most Whitehall departments will face a spending squeeze in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review if the chancellor sticks to the spending limits outlined in his Pre-Budget Report, independent...
Tory leader David Cameron has hit the ground running, ditching old party certainties for the centre ground. But how much substance is there? Philip Johnston has his doubts
A High Court judge has ruled that the criteria used by many primary care trusts to assess whether someone should have to pay for their nursing care are 'fatally flawed' in law.
Opposition MPs have called for an 'urgent and independent' investigation into the alleged failure of the tax credits system to deal adequately with fraud.
