The new chancellor's first Pre-Budget Report forecast a temporary dip in revenue and slowed the growth in spending. Both of these pose risks for the government's grand plans for public services
Town hall leaders are warning of cuts to services and jobs after the government's long-awaited Comprehensive Spending Review and Pre-Budget Report this week gave them a meagre 0.9% annual funding...
The Equality and Human Rights Commission came into being this month, bringing all equality issues under one roof. Is this a great leap forward in the fight against discrimination or a messy merger of...
The NHS has managed to turn a deficit of £547m into a surplus of £510m in one year. Sally Gainsbury looks at the figures behind this success story, and asks how such a financial turnaround could have...
News that adult social care funding will be frozen in real terms was sweetened slightly by the confirmation that the government will consult on a radical overhaul to the system.
Local Government and Communities Secretary Hazel Blears is under pressure to sign up to an 'accord' to eradicate child poverty, after Chancellor Alistair Darling's Comprehensive Spending Review...
Ministers should not force the Jobcentre Plus agency into further job cuts or they risk undermining progress in helping people off benefits and into work, backbench MPs warned this week.
Private sector expectations for lucrative NHS contracts have 'come down with a bump' after government projections for their involvement proved to be 'over-egged', leading market analysts have said.
Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears is under pressure to reject a proposed overhaul of council services in the Northwest, after auditors representing one of the nine bids for unitary status...
A Performance and Efficiency Delivery Unit is to be created in Northern Ireland to improve value for money in the public sector, Finance Minister Peter Robinson told CIPFA's annual Northern Ireland...
The pledge to end the 'postcode lottery' in who gets free social care might not bear fruit because primary care trusts are ignoring new guidance from the Department of Health, Public Finance has...
The Comprehensive Spending Review is imminent but Chief Secretary to the Treasury Andy Burnham still has some juggling to do not least to find the funding for the PM's new plans for public services...
Traditional procurement is delivering more value for money as the discipline of the Private Finance Initiative spreads across the market, the Treasury's head of PFI policy has said.
Several hundred civil service jobs in Scotland would be axed under plans drawn up in advance of the Comprehensive Spending Review, which is expected to impose a tight squeeze on Holyrood's budget.
Communities Minister Stewart Maxwell has given an assurance that the new Scottish government is firmly committed to achieving a 2012 target for eliminating homelessness.
he shock waves from Northern Rock continue to reverberate throughout the British economy. But what do the financial upheavals mean for public sector organisations and employees? Paul Gosling delves...
The government's move towards 'lighter-touch' regulation in adult social care creates new concerns, a senior inspector told delegates at the CIPFA social care finance conference on September 24.
The former finance director of an NHS hospital trust has been 'suspended' from CIPFA membership after being found guilty of professional misconduct and of breaching the institute's standards.
Experts from across government, education, business and the public sector are being brought together to draw up a strategy for adult education in the UK.
Plans by the Scottish government to freeze council tax and cut business rates will cost more than £1.3bn over the next three years, according to a leading public finance commentator and former...
The role of shadowing Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney has been split between two MSPs in the shadow Cabinet appointed this week by the new Labour leader, Wendy Alexander.
The grumblings from public sector trade unions are growing louder as Gordon Brown prepares for his first Labour Party conference as prime minister next week. But the strike threats over the pay rise...
