Bureaucracy in the planning system is to be dramatically cut back and replaced with a new set of rules designed to stimulate growth and hand more power to ‘communities’, the government has announced.
Local government minister Bob Neill has told Public Finance that today’s Decentralisation and Localism Bill will usher in a new ‘can-do’ era for councils.
Welfare reform is crucial to the coalition’s agenda. But ministers’ plans are driven by cuts rather than consistent principles, while Labour seems out of touch. Policy thinkers Gavin Kelly and Nick...
Housing minister Grant Shapps has given more details on his reforms to social housing, due to feature in the government’s forthcoming Decentralisation and Localism Bill
The strategy for tackling child poverty should be overhauled, with more funding targeted during the first five years of life, according to a major review published today
Ministers have confirmed that they will delay cutting Housing Benefit for existing claimants, and will introduce incentives for private landlords to drop their prices.
The previous government's Regional Spatial Strategies were abolished because they did not result in more houses being built. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles told MPs yesterday
Auditors have called for action to improve housing and support services for people with mental health needs in Wales, after finding an ‘unacceptable’ lack of progress on the issue
The Department for Communities and Local Government has withdrawn £1.9bn of funding from 13 planned Private Finance Initiative housing projects, it was announced today
David Cameron was quizzed about the Comprehensive Spending Review by senior MPs this afternoon, resulting in a particularly lively tussle over the changes to Housing Benefit.
Should the public sector start drowning its sorrows as the cuts kick in? Doom merchants certainly seem to think so. But perhaps in reality the glass is half full and not half empty. Tony Travers...
Households in almost a third of councils outside London will lose £50 a month or more as a result of the government’s Housing Benefit caps, a housing and homelessness charity has claimed.
The government misjudged the opposition from Conservative London councils to its social housing cuts, a leading public policy expert has told Public Finance.
The Housing Benefit bill is likely to soar after Chancellor George Osborne confirmed that rents for new social housing tenants will rise to 80% of the market rate, Public Finance has learnt
