Current UK procurement rules were drawn up decades before the Internet existed and globalisation took off. Now draft regulations aim to bring these up to date and put a new EU directive into effect
As the TUC and government square up for their annual seaside contest, ministers face a movement riven with divisions and agonising about its future. Judy Hirst predicts tough times ahead for public...
Audit Commission inspectors have promised to discover more about the work of housing associations after just two-thirds of landlords said they were satisfied with a new inspection system.
A leading race-relations expert has called for high standards of political accountability following the London bombings amid threats of an extremist backlash.
The Department of Health has written an urgent letter to strategic health authorities urging them to stop drawing up commissioning plans for when primary care trusts end their provider role in 2008.
Public sector trades unions held pre-emptive talks this week over the thorny issue of pensions amid growing fears that they could fail to agree reform principles with ministers in advance of more...
Sixty years of the welfare state have failed to ensure that those in most need of public services have adequate access to them, leading to 'wide and persisting inequality', research has found.
As soon as the A-level results are announced, the arguments start, as the qualification is denounced and celebrated in turn. But in the furore, the practical questions about the exam tend to be...
It's difficult to see local government as the stuff of good theatre. But David Edgar's play uses infighting at a failing council to make some trenchant points about democracy. Joseph McHugh reports
The IRA's decision to end armed conflict finally gives Northern Ireland's citizens the chance of a normal life. But this means setting up democratic systems to replace political structures built...
It seems the 'Berlin Wall' dividing health and social care might finally be coming down, as ministers finalise a combined white paper. But will this lead to a merger of social services departments...
Internet-based information about public services could encourage social exclusion and segregation, research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found.
Finally, a hospital waiting time target that should genuinely help patients. But can the tough new plan to cut the time from GP referral to treatment to 18 weeks be achieved? Anthony Harrison and...
Britain still dumps most of its rubbish in landfill sites, instead of recycling it. But tough new European Union regulations are set to change all that. David Meilton reports on how councils are...
Many of Bexley council's school pupils were being educated in huts, with winds raging through broken windows. Then the chance of a £30m PFI refurbishment programme came along. Mike Ellsmore explains...
The coalition of charities acting on behalf of older people has reacted angrily to the government's watering down of the Office of Fair Trading's recommendations to give elderly care home residents a...
An extra £65m is to be spent on health centres, clinics and other primary care facilities in Scotland, First Minister Jack McConnell announced this week.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has asked local government pension funds to recalculate the disputed cost of revoking last April's increase in the scheme's retirement age to 65.
Business leaders have dismissed regional development agencies as irrelevant to the success of their companies, saying they do not understand their role or even why they exist.
