The Scottish Executive is on course to meet the majority of targets set out in its draft budget for 2004/05, Finance and Public Services Minister Andy Kerr announced this week.
The Treasury is determined to monitor Whitehall departments to ensure that extra investment reaches the front line and is not held up in overrunning capital projects, Chancellor Gordon Brown warned...
Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy has told his party's spring conference that he is not scared to use the word 'redistribution' when describing his tax and spending plans.
Gordon Brown's pledge to prune Whitehall's army of Sir Humphreys and slash billions of pounds from the government's annual spending bill ensured that these issues dominated last week's post-Budget...
Government attempts to reduce poverty and inequality across England have had a limited impact so far, despite sustained investment, according to a report by the Social Exclusion Unit.
Senior parliamentary watchdogs this week launched a broadside at the Labour government, criticising ministers for continually blocking Commons committees from cross-examining senior policy advisers...
Gordon Brown threw down the gauntlet to the Conservatives this week when he used his Budget statement to promise substantial extra investment in key public services well into the next Parliament.
Ministers should introduce local health czars and revamp GP surgeries as part of a programme of public health improvement, the King's Fund said this week.
Sir Michael Lyons has urged ministers to identify a further 40,000 Whitehall posts for relocation, after Chancellor Gordon Brown this week backed plans to move 20,000 civil service jobs out of London.
More than £1bn a year needs to be invested in the social housing sector to meet future demand and secure a long-term improvement in the housing market, the Treasury-commissioned review of UK housing...
'Insulting' and 'a slap in the face' are not extraordinary comments in the opening rounds of the local government pay talks. But this year is extraordinary.
Labour activists should make the most of the fact that Labour councils have set the lowest average council tax rises in the forthcoming local elections, the party's leadership has said.
The UK's revenue departments are to be merged, with the loss of 10,500 jobs in the next four years in what is likely to be the first round of efficiency cuts.
Benefit offices, jobcentres and other agencies of the Department for Work and Pensions could effectively shut down for a full week over Easter unless there is a breakthrough in the dispute over civil...
Local government employers are poised to offer around a 2% pay increase this year, half of the unions' claim, under pressure to stick to Treasury inflation targets and keep council spending down.
Chancellor Gordon Brown faces tough choices over public spending and may have to cut investment in key services to balance the Treasury's books, according to an influential think-tank.
The Conservative Party's review of waste and bureaucracy in the public services has already identified savings 'significantly in excess' of the £35bn-a-year target set, Oliver Letwin has told Public...
Scottish universities have urged the Executive to provide £102m of annual funding to enable them to undertake new activities and compete with their counterparts in England and abroad.
Audit Scotland plans to put more emphasis on the experience of service users as a means of strengthening its analysis and reporting of public expenditure, auditor general Bob Black has disclosed.
Chancellor Gordon Brown is being urged to clamp down on public sector spending because the rising tax burden it has generated is not being matched by increased productivity, according to business...
The stage is set for a showdown between ministers and town hall leaders after authorities defied government orders not to set council tax increases above 5% and issued warnings that budgets could not...
When the NHS was established in 1948, Nye Bevan believed its effect on the nation's health would be so profound that future governments would not have to increase its budget greatly.