The Private Finance Initiative is expensive and inflexible and deflects from government priorities, a House of Commons Treasury committee was told this week.
A local authority insisted this week that it had taken steps to reduce stress among employees after paying a record £203,000 to a former warden at a site for gypsies.
Local education authorities that refuse to take bullying seriously could face increasing legal action from the victims, a leading teaching union has warned.
The Treasury wants members of its public services directorate to shadow head teachers, NHS executives and senior local government officials to establish a better grasp of government spending...
The first of a rolling series of Audit Commission and Social Services Inspectorate reports into Welsh social services have produced a winner and a loser.
Contractors bidding for Private Finance Initiative contracts in the health service face an extra round of competition following the introduction of long-awaited guidance by Health Secretary Alan...
The Scottish Ambulance Service should introduce a multi-million pound call prioritisation service as soon as possible, the National Audit Office said this week.
Doctors' allowances are under threat following an Audit Commission report showing that fraud perpetrated by general practitioners in England has increased tenfold in the past year.
There must be no let-up in health authorities' and trusts' battle to bear down on debt and meet the government's targets, NHS Executive finance director Colin Reeves said this week.
Seventeen local authorities placed under 'special measures' by the government have complained that they were treated unfairly by being named and shamed by social care minister John Hutton.
Two senior government ministers have set out to find a cure for the plague of form-filling and local government is due to be one of the chief beneficiaries.
The health service is being urged to reduce its deficit next year, even if that means postponing initiatives and cutting other services, finance managers said this week.
An improvement agency covering the whole of the public sector in Scotland could be set up, following the publication next month of a report by the Best Value Taskforce.
The government's crackdown on fraud in the National Health Service started in earnest this week with new powers for the NHS Tribunal to disqualify practitioners who have committed fraud.
Rural districts are likely to benefit hugely from radical changes in the way Scotland's 15 health boards are funded. But the new system is not likely to be implemented before 2001/02, it emerged this...
The chief secretary to the Treasury, Andrew Smith, is to create a series of Service Delivery Agreements spanning the whole of government, he reveals in this week's Public Finance .
Home Secretary Jack Straw has been forced to go back to the drawing board after it emerged that his draft Freedom of Information Bill contravened international agreements on the environment.
The Prescription Pricing Authority has suggested setting aside its prescription backlog, wiping out two months' data, as one way of getting future prescribing information to health authorities and...
Only a small number of primary care trusts (PCTs) may be formed next year, following the British Medical Association's insistence that the new bodies should receive support from at least two-thirds...
Local health schemes, such as the development of diabetes care or minor injuries units, face the axe as a result of the government's change of direction on funding.
Short-termism and vague targets set by councils are hampering innovative work on regeneration and economic development, the Audit Commission warned this week.
The NHS Confederation called this week for a 'modest' increase in the number of health service managers to help health authorities fulfil their new strategic role.
