Council and housing association tenants should be encouraged to buy as little as 10% of their homes as a first step towards full ownership, social landlords were told this week.
The Commission for Racial Equality's decision to investigate the Department of Health has prompted calls for new mental health legislation to be amended to promote racial equality.
The government's failure to measure population mobility is costing councils in London £100m a year in lost funding for services, according to a study from the London School of Economics.
Scottish councils have cut their financial reserves for the first time in recent years after facing 'significant and steadily increasing' costs, the Accounts Commission has found.
Social landlords must be willing to borrow substantially more from private lenders so that twice as many homes for rent can be built each year, the Housing Corporation warned this week.
Despite the best efforts of the Disability Discrimination Act, too many disabled people are still treated as second-class citizens. The new equality duty on public sector organisations is intended to...
It's the end of the line for a lot of regulatory red tape in local government as Peter Rogers prepares to slash more than 60 Whitehall-controlled areas down to five. He explains his role
Public Accounts Committee chair Edward Leigh has reacted angrily to National Audit Office findings that 'efficiency gains' reported under the Gershon agenda are still not being robustly measured by...
Most policies are made at a national level and do not reflect England's true economic geography, which is at city or council level. Local optimisation means there must be more local decision-making
Rural regeneration was once top of the in-tray at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. But other political priorities are preoccupying ministers, and public services in the...
US-style healthcare schemes are increasingly being imported into the NHS. But do they work on UK soil? Opinion is sharply divided within the medical profession and beyond. Seamus Ward investigates
Local authorities may have seriously underestimated the condition of their homes before the government embarked on its drive to bring them up to standard, according to a new study.
'Thinking the unthinkable' is a term synonymous with New Labour's rather self-aggrandising approach to policy reform yet the reality is that some ministers have been marginalised for obliging with...
Improving access to English lessons is one of the most useful steps councils can take to ensure migrant workers are better integrated into their communities, the local government watchdog said this...
The national green belt policy should be swept away and decisions over planning permission left entirely in the hands of local communities, according to Policy Exchange.
Councils with social care responsibilities are anticipating increasing council tax by an average of just 3.6% in 2007/08 a 1% drop on last year despite claiming a funding 'crisis' for adult care...
Councillors will be allowed to address local meetings on issues in which they have a personal interest, under plans floated this week by Local Government Secretary Ruth Kelly.
Nobody was too surprised by the government's plan to create a new agency to take charge of housing and regeneration in England within the next two years.
Council tax bills in Scotland have risen by an average of nearly 60% in cash terms over the past ten years, a local government finance report has revealed.
Are decades of planning laws about to be reversed in a free-for-all that will carpet England's green belts with out-of-town megastores? Peter Hetherington weighs up the evidence on the Barker review
Who would have thought it? NHS Resource Accounting and Budgeting has suddenly got the media excited. And there's plenty more fancy footwork where that came from. Andy McKeon explains how the Rab...
A new multi-billion pound agency will take charge of housing and regeneration in England within the next two years, the government confirmed this week.
