The detox diets and gym memberships will soon be history. But for Public Finance 's panel of public sector experts, the New Year challenges have only just begun.
What goes around comes around. For decades, small-scale government was all the rage. Now large centralised public agencies are back in fashion. Colin Talbot and Carole Johnson investigate the merger...
The Department for Work and Pensions this week released details of the job cuts it has overseen as part of the Gershon review totals that surpass figures in the 2005 Pre-Budget Report.
Fed up with slaving away in the background on your worthy but dull project while others bask in the glory of their ground-breaking, award-winning pathfinders? Well, suffer no longer. Michael Ware has...
Ministers are being challenged to commit themselves to a major increase in social housing after new figures showed the number of families without permanent homes still exceeds 100,000.
The Ministry of Defence plans to reduce the number of performance indicators that determine payments made to Private Finance Initiative contractors, Public Finance has learnt.
Councils' scrutiny committees are likely to be transformed into 'local area select committees' under proposals to place Local Strategic Partnerships at the centre of service delivery, Phil Woolas has...
A senior Whitehall academic this week cast doubt on Gordon Brown's claim that the government is on target to achieve its ambitious £40bn efficiency savings package by 2008.
All local authorities must share the spoils of the proposed Planning Gain Supplement or the gap between areas of economic success and deprivation will widen, Gordon Brown is being warned.
The Treasury is likely to place a strict cap on the money retained by public bodies if they sell parts of their radiowave spectrums, Public Finance has been told.
Scotland's health service is achieving better clinical results and cutting most waiting times but needs to improve its financial and workforce management, a spending watchdog has found.
So the chancellor has managed just to keep within his fiscal rules. But his Pre-Budget Report lays the ground for spending cuts that will leave little funding for services other than the...
Announcing the local government finance settlement at the same time as the Pre-Budget Report might have pushed it into the news background. But the government cannot hide from the issues forever
So finally the Pensions Commission report is out. But has it found the answer to the funding crisis and, if so, will the government take its recommendations on board? Peter Robinson investigates
The Home Office's finance chief is bringing a professional accounting approach to Whitehall at a time when it is under most pressure. She talks to Mark Conrad
The British civil service is rightly admired throughout the world, and yet everyone wants to 'reform' it. Tony Travers considers the skills that are needed for the thoroughly modern mandarin
The chancellor's pledge to make the Office for National Statistics fully independent is a long-overdue step vital to restore confidence in claims that public services are improving, experts have said...
Public bodies providing local services should be able to opt out of implementing new policies if central government has not provided adequate funding, according to a think-tank.
The new beefed-up version of the Audit Commission should be able to stop other inspectorates from poring over council services if it feels it is unnecessary, ministers are proposing.
