Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain has been criticised by the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance for calling for a reduction in the size of the province's public sector.
As the Conservatives gear up for their Blackpool conference next week, they face their most important leadership contest in more than 40 years. Philip Johnston analyses the policies behind the beauty...
Gordon Brown's fiscal rules were invented to win his party credibility, but he has changed their definitions so often that unless they are independently scrutinised we face a borrowing disaster
The Liberal Democrat leadership this week called on members to support a bold range of new policy proposals designed to give the party a real chance of electoral success by the end of the decade.
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are meant to be as one on the need for radical public sector reform. But as Blair embarks on one of his last Party conferences as PM, his quest for a legacy is bringing...
More than 10% of the civil service could be outsourced to private or voluntary organisations under controversial reforms to job seekers' services being considered by the Department for Work and...
The London bombings are putting long-established 'community cohesion' policies to the test and threatening to hijack them in the name of a quick fix for terrorism.
Mammoth PFI commitments appear to have had their day in the NHS, now that the government is prizing competition above all else. Smaller, self-financed projects are emerging as the way forward
The Prudential Code has not led to councils abandoning leasing for loans as predicted, but finance managers say it has freed them to borrow for major projects that will save money in the long term
It's difficult to see local government as the stuff of good theatre. But David Edgar's play uses infighting at a failing council to make some trenchant points about democracy. Joseph McHugh reports
The IRA's decision to end armed conflict finally gives Northern Ireland's citizens the chance of a normal life. But this means setting up democratic systems to replace political structures built...
It seems the 'Berlin Wall' dividing health and social care might finally be coming down, as ministers finalise a combined white paper. But will this lead to a merger of social services departments...
Many of Bexley council's school pupils were being educated in huts, with winds raging through broken windows. Then the chance of a £30m PFI refurbishment programme came along. Mike Ellsmore explains...
Business leaders have dismissed regional development agencies as irrelevant to the success of their companies, saying they do not understand their role or even why they exist.
Finally, a hospital waiting time target that should genuinely help patients. But can the tough new plan to cut the time from GP referral to treatment to 18 weeks be achieved? Anthony Harrison and...
Britain still dumps most of its rubbish in landfill sites, instead of recycling it. But tough new European Union regulations are set to change all that. David Meilton reports on how councils are...
Local authorities are vulnerable to a legal challenge that their outsourced services breach new European Union rules designed to avoid the overpayment of contractors, Public Finance has learnt.
Local government must step up its efficiency drive by adopting bigger and bolder strategies, the sector's procurement champion Tim Byles has told Public Finance.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's review of the local government grant formula must take greater account of the extra cost of providing essential public services to far-flung rural...
For all the talk of a dramatic urban renaissance, population flight from Britain's city centres to suburbia and the countryside continues apace. Tony Travers explains what needs to be done to reverse...
The Office of Government Commerce's trading arm this week reported that it had made efficiency savings worth £321m on £2bn worth of procurement deals during 2004/05.
