As struggling NHS trusts face a year of even more cost pressures, targets, efficiency savings and payment by results, they will have to use every wile they can to attract patients. Seamus Ward...
This week's health and social care white paper promises joint working and preventive care in the community. But NHS deficits and social service cutbacks mean the trends are pointing the other way....
Local authorities in England and Scotland have opened the annual trial of strength with the government over council tax with the traditional pleas for more funding and warnings of service cuts.
Lenders and developers are showing renewed interest in housing schemes funded through the Private Finance Initiative, a leading civil servant said this week.
The government was this week accused of failing Britain's poorest groups after it emerged that up to £7bn in benefits went unclaimed in 2003/04, while take-up of key welfare payments has fallen since...
Health economists have called into doubt the government's presumption that its planned transfer of 5% of current hospital activity £2.4bn in budget terms to primary and social care will be cost-...
Voluntary organisations can reach parts that monolithic public services can't even get close to. And the government is waking up to their importance in areas such as employment services and welfare...
Local government minister and political wunderkind David Miliband has been tipped as a potential Labour prime minister. Vivienne Russell meets a minister who is very much on the move
The outsourcing company planning to shift hundreds of council jobs from London to the Scottish Highlands will not offer skilled staff equivalent positions in the capital if they refuse to move 580...
Most Whitehall departments will face a spending squeeze in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review if the chancellor sticks to the spending limits outlined in his Pre-Budget Report, independent...
The tougher CPA is here and there is no hiding place. One of the weak spots is external funding, with many councils displaying a frightening lack of control over and knowledge of grant bids. Guy...
First it was in, then it was out, now it's 'in-sourced'. Croydon council believes it has found the best way to run its benefits service. Nathan Elvery explains
Not so long ago, light rail or tram schemes were the favourite solutions to transport problems in English cities. But one by one the planned projects have collapsed and Transport Secretary Alistair...
Tory leader David Cameron has hit the ground running, ditching old party certainties for the centre ground. But how much substance is there? Philip Johnston has his doubts
Public service reforms will fail unless the government addresses 'unfair tax rules' and 'muddled regulation' in the competition for contracts, business and charity leaders have warned.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is refusing to compensate councils for lost grant, even though the government's own statisticians have admitted the data used to calculate it is flawed.
The controversy surrounding the education white paper was stepped up this week as an influential committee of MPs failed to agree on a response to the government's proposed school reforms.
A High Court judge has ruled that the criteria used by many primary care trusts to assess whether someone should have to pay for their nursing care are 'fatally flawed' in law.
Scottish councils have warned that they face a bill of up to £560m and council tax increases of more than £80 a year if they settle disputes over an equal pay agreement.
The European Commission has described as 'artificial' the government's rationale for removing the right of some local government workers to claim full pension benefits at 60.
A London borough has called off any further stock transfer ballots after tenants on five estates rejected plans to switch their homes to housing associations.
The government is running out of time to deliver on its localism agenda and risking disaffection throughout local government, Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart has warned.
