City-regions offer a new take on local democracy, holding out the idea of governance that reflects the urban economic realities. But these will only work if the hinterland is also involved in...
Not for Scotland the path well trodden. While Westminster endorses market-based public service reforms, the Scottish Executive is ploughing its own furrow on education, health and immigration. Iain...
City regions such as Birmingham and Greater Manchester should be given control of their own regeneration budgets and granted tax-raising powers, according to a report published by the Institute for...
Much of Whitehall's reform agenda is incompatible with its current constitutional position a situation that could be solved by a Civil Service Act, according to the sector's former appointments...
Social mobility has stalled, despite the government's best efforts to raise the aspirations of children from working-class homes. Effective reform of local services will be crucial to turning this...
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.
& 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
When the National Audit Office investigated Whitehall's efficiency savings it found that they weren't all they seemed. Some were aspirational, some weren't efficient and others couldn't be proved....
The Private Finance Initiative has never been a free lunch for the NHS. Now even the Treasury seems to be losing its appetite for large PFI hospital schemes. Noel Plumridge explains why
The NHS Confederation has called for a renewed focus on the treatment of chronic diseases after research revealed that repeated emergency hospital admissions cost the health service £2.3bn a year.
The Department for Work and Pensions has become the first major Whitehall body to sign up to the Office of Government Commerce's new on-line procurement service.
More than half of the savings made under Whitehall's efficiency agenda have effectively been wiped out by an unexpected rise in the cost of staff pensions across two sectors this year, it has emerged.
Government claims of achieving billions of pounds worth of efficiency savings under the Gershon programme must be treated as provisional and require further validation, a public spending watchdog is...
First Minister Jack McConnell hinted at the prospect of a reorganisation of local government in Scotland as local authorities set council tax levels with an average rise of 3.3%.
Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton this week warned that a rise in the basic state pension age is 'inevitable' the first firm indication that his forthcoming retirement proposals could contain...
Armed forces minister Adam Ingram has warned Ministry of Defence civil servants to expect 'a significant number' of compulsory redundancies following his decision to close key sites in Wales and the...
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...
Local authorities in England and Scotland have opened the annual trial of strength with the government over council tax with the traditional pleas for more funding and warnings of service cuts.
The Home Office is set to move a key accounting unit from Liverpool to its London headquarters to help prevent a repeat of the 'spectacular' financial errors unearthed by auditors this week.
A 'year zero' comprehensive spending review of all public sector spending in Northern Ireland has been announced by secretary of state Peter Hain. The review could lead to the abolition of some...
Health economists have called into doubt the government's presumption that its planned transfer of 5% of current hospital activity £2.4bn in budget terms to primary and social care will be cost-...
This week's health and social care white paper promises joint working and preventive care in the community. But NHS deficits and social service cutbacks mean the trends are pointing the other way....
