The government has fined Capita £1.8m for its failings at the Criminal Records Bureau while granting the company an extra £8.4m to compensate it for last-minute changes to the system, Public Finance...
Education Secretary Charles Clarke's decision to allow schools to use money earmarked for building improvements to ease budget shortages violates good accounting practice, CIPFA has warned.
The...
Teaching unions have described Education Secretary Charles Clarke's overhaul of tests for primary school children as an 'awkward halfway house' that will give the false impression that the government...
Growing mistrust of public bodies is being prompted by suspicions that they are not open and honest with service users, the Audit Commission has warned.
Research by pollster Mori has found that,...
Scotland's deputy first minister, Jim Wallace, is to take on the task of reviving its flagging economy, at the heart of First Minister Jack McConnell's new administration.
Wallace, the Liberal...
Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council has become the first to claim a reward from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for meeting its interim Local Public Service Agreement targets.
The council...
London boroughs have accused the government of 'spin' this week after five local education authorities were named and shamed as having the capital's worst performing schools, despite being recognised...
The government has lined up a number of concessions on its foundation trust initiative in an attempt to ensure its safe passage.
Following last week's muted rebellion, the Health and Social Care (...
Ministers must come up with more funds for employer-led education and training or British productivity will continue to suffer, trade union bosses warned this week.
The Trades Union Congress,...
The government aims to accelerate its foundation trust initiative by encouraging the first wave of the new organisations to help their neighbours achieve the status, too.
The Conservatives have started a row after pledging to scrap university tuition fees if they are returned to power, which they believe will save £700m.
The National Union of Students and the...
Councils should be prohibited from placing families with children in bed and breakfast accommodation for more than six weeks, the government said this week.
New proposals on housing homeless people...
Few finance managers feel able to express strongly positive views on the success of e-government plans
Last week's local election results will have given comfort to e-government enthusiasts...
The Commons' education select committee has launched an inquiry into the row over schools funding, calling on standards minister David Miliband to explain an alleged £530m shortfall.
Chair Barry...
The IT system for the Criminal Records Bureau failed to meet the government's original specification, a Home Office minister has admitted.
Junior minister Hilary Benn conceded that the CRB's system...
The government's 'consumerist' approach to public services, promoting competition between providers, could alienate the very people they are supposed to serve, a Left-wing think-tank claims....
Rail maintenance and building contractor Jarvis will have only support functions in its controversial new contract to advise education authorities on good practice.
Disclosure this week of the £21....
Health minister John Hutton has urged nurses to become hospital governors as part of the government's foundation trust reforms.
Speaking at the Royal College of Nursing's annual conference in...
A replacement for Northern Ireland's 11-plus examination will be recommended by a working group before the end of October, the province's acting education minister, Jane Kennedy, has announced.
The...
May 1 was to have been the date when elections occurred in each of the three devolved nations of the United Kingdom Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Except, as is so often the case in the...
Foundation trusts will not be able to opt out of the NHS's Agenda for Change pay deal, Health Secretary Alan Milburn confirmed this week as he launched a concerted campaign to quash opposition to the...
A Scottish trust at the centre of a stinging report on its Private Finance Initiative hit back at its critics this week.
Lothian University Hospitals Trust's £210m PFI to rebuild the Edinburgh...
The government has failed to think through the impact of its plans to build hundreds of thousands of extra homes in the Southeast, according to the Commons committee scrutinising Deputy Prime...
Every local authority will be asked to explain its education budget decisions in an attempt to resolve the row between ministers and councils over allocations to schools.
Education Secretary...
Head teachers this week accused ministers of playing a deliberate 'smoke and mirrors' game with education budgets, using 'double or triple counting' tricks to play up bottom-line increases in funding...
