Watchdogs at the Office of Fair Trading have warned that their investigation into alleged anti-competition activities at the Environment Agency will be a complex affair.
The OFT launched its...
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...
Westminster City Council this week found itself embroiled in a new row over the relocation of its staff and services under outsourcing contracts, when it emerged that the London borough's housing...
Anyone who thought that urban development corporations were as dead as the Thatcher government that created them should think again.
More than five years after the last generation of UDCs closed,...
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...
Housing associations are finding it difficult to collect escalating rent arrears from tenants and 'a major rethink is needed', the Audit Commission warned this week.
A report by the local...
Smaller housing associations are being squeezed out of new development programmes as the Housing Corporation diverts money towards larger landlords.
During the coming year, 28,500 new homes will be...
Social landlords should compete for the right to manage houses transferred from local authorities, a leading lender said this week.
Competition might raise the quality of post-transfer management...
Registered social landlords are generating increasing funds from activities other than social housing.
New figures show that income from non-core activities rose by 22% in 2001/02 from £662m to £...
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...
Ministers are poised to create the first urban development corporation in ten years in an attempt to help house-building east of London.
Proposals for a UDC in Thurrock, Essex, were published by...
Local authority housing departments will no longer undergo an annual performance assessment under a new funding regime coming into force next year.
Although regional government offices must be told...
Work will begin in the autumn on a groundbreaking public-private partnership that will revolutionise health services in Greater Manchester, it has been announced.
The £100m Manchester, Salford and...
A three-year government review of rent restructuring has been criticised by the Chartered Institute of Housing for avoiding major questions.
The review, launched by the Office of the Deputy Prime...
Action must be taken to tackle staff shortages in mental health services, two leading think-tanks said this week.
In separate publications, the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (SCMH) and the...
The London Borough of Ealing has had its Comprehensive Performance Assessment upgraded from 'weak' to 'fair' after the Audit Commission was forced to admit the authority had been wrongly evaluated.
Fifteen more councils have told the government they want to create arm's-length management organisations to oversee their housing.
Demand for places on the third round of the Almo programme, which...
MPs this week launched a scathing attack on the government's complex community regeneration initiatives, claiming that Whitehall has too much control over the budgets for local schemes.
The Commons...
Weaknesses in the Department for Work and Pensions' computer system hamper efforts to increase the take-up of benefits among elderly people, the Public Accounts Committee has said.
Between £930m...
Lethargic planning departments will not be allowed to stand in the way of new housing in Southeast England, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has warned councils.
He said: 'We can't be in a...
The Home Office has rejected the key recommendation from an inspection of asylum seeker detention centres that children should not be held for longer than seven days.
Chief inspector of prisons...
Gordon Brown opened a new front in the government's ongoing battles with trade unions this week when he used his Budget statement to indicate a move towards regional pay settlements.
Government ministers have agreed to alter the Bill paving the way for regional assemblies to ensure referendum ballots have a separate question on the issue of local government reorganisation....
Moves to encourage home ownership should not make the same mistakes as the right to buy scheme by reducing properties available for rent, the chair of the Housing Corporation warned this week....
Council tenants wishing to buy their homes under the right to buy scheme will need to have lived in the house for five years instead of two in future, the government announced this week.
The...
