It no longer seems so much 'if' as 'when'. Bizarre, amazing, doomed call it what you will, but the Rev Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness look set to become first and deputy first ministers of...
The Parliamentary and health service Ombudsman has found the Department of Health guilty of 'maladministration' in its bungled attempts to correct an earlier error.
Ministers and councillors should have more direct control over quangos and arm's-length bodies, Tom McCabe, Scotland's finance minister, has suggested.
Pre-school children are not meeting government-set learning goals because of variable early years teaching standards, education inspectors said this week.
Hospitals could fail the Healthcare Commission's annual health check if they do not treat elderly patients with dignity and give them adequate help with eating.
Senior hospital doctors believe that major NHS reforms, such as payment by results and Patient Choice, will fail to improve the service patients receive, according to a British Medical Association...
GPs should be able to provide their patients with free social care services, even if their local authority has deemed them ineligible for such help, the Department of Health has said.
Local government trade unions have agreed to hold off further industrial action in their long-running dispute over pensions as they believe they are close to a deal, Public Finance has learnt.
Thousands of female civil servants are poised to launch equal pay claims following the failure of departments to address glaring disparities in salaries legal challenges that could cost the...
The Department for Work and Pensions has tried to improve its call centres after a damning PAC report last year. But has it done enough? Justin Pugsley reports
Number 10's online road-pricing e-petition was a huge hit. Not in terms of the likely fate of that policy but because it encouraged nearly 2 million people to put their point of view. Not a bad...
The first signs of a breakthrough in Whitehall's industrial relations dispute emerged this week when the Cabinet Office assumed responsibility for a government-wide assessment of privatisation plans.
Ministers would set the education and community care budgets of every council in Scotland and take responsibility for managing these services under a radical plan drawn up by a leading civil servant.
Ministers must commit Whitehall departments to new joint Public Service Agreements if they are to tackle the growing gap between unemployment and skills in the North of England compared with the...
Local authorities are offsetting low council tax rises with increases in the fees they charge for care services ranging from 13% to 100%, Public Finance has learnt.
Town hall leaders have backed MPs' calls for more funding and financial powers to be devolved to councils to help strengthen major cities' transport infrastructure.
A report published last week summarises the state of social housing and offers some solutions to the dilemmas the sector faces. But it promises no quick solutions to a complex set of problems
Building more low-cost homes for sale is one of the solutions to the housing crisis. But this doesn't have to be the sole preserve of private developers. In fact, social landlords are taking on this...
Northern Ireland's 26 district councils have fixed their rates for 2007/08 the first to be based on properties' capital values as at January 2005 rather than nominal rental values.
A council heavily criticised in a watchdog report has become the first in Scotland to cut its council tax since local government was reorganised in 1996.
Ministers will this week assure MPs that legislation will be amended to ensure that NHS trusts are required to work with councils to meet locally agreed targets.
An acute shortage of social housing is reducing tenants' mobility and failing to offer them an incentive to find work, says a government-commissioned review.
The Local Government Association's new finance and performance director expects to be a 'broker of understanding' for town halls and Whitehall, he tells Joseph McHugh
