Town hall leaders have hit back at ministerial criticisms that they are not making full use of new powers to crack down on environmental crimes such as littering and dog fouling.
Scottish Communities Minister Malcolm Chisholm has given assurances that plans to transfer control of Glasgow's public housing stock to community ownership will go ahead despite a reported £300m...
The Local Government Association and unions have failed to reach an agreement over the benefit protection of existing members of the local government pension scheme, bringing the likelihood of strike...
David Rowland, the permanent secretary at the Department for Transport, has been asked by the Treasury to co-ordinate Whitehall's latest attempt at a multi-billion pound savings drive through shared...
The government hates it and wants to avoid it at all costs. But there's no getting away from local party politics in a representative democracy, argue George Jones and John Stewart. It needs to be...
City-regions offer a new take on local democracy, holding out the idea of governance that reflects the urban economic realities. But these will only work if the hinterland is also involved in...
Most local authorities want to make the most of their community powers and include social and environmental benefits in the contracts they award. But procurement law can be problematic
Not for Scotland the path well trodden. While Westminster endorses market-based public service reforms, the Scottish Executive is ploughing its own furrow on education, health and immigration. Iain...
Ministers have secured sufficient support to see the education Bill over its first parliamentary hurdle but further battles are likely, education experts predict.
Serious failings in the management and control of a public sector joint venture, which led to substantial financial losses, have been revealed in a report from the auditor general for Northern...
The Department of Trade and Industry's Women and Work Commission has urged the government to consider seriously allowing class actions in equal pay cases.
City regions such as Birmingham and Greater Manchester should be given control of their own regeneration budgets and granted tax-raising powers, according to a report published by the Institute for...
Almost a year to the day after Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott caved into pressure on pension rights, local government union members are once again being balloted for strike action on the issue.
NHS health boards in Scotland are to receive an above-inflation average funding increase of 7.25%, bringing their allocation to £6.5bn, Health Minister Andy Kerr announced this week.
Scottish council chief executives and senior officials face new laws to make them directly accountable for their decisions and to hold them responsible for poor advice.
Social mobility has stalled, despite the government's best efforts to raise the aspirations of children from working-class homes. Effective reform of local services will be crucial to turning this...
Everyone agrees that the council tax is regressive but there's less consensus on the solution. The interim Lyons report plumped for reforming the benefit system and not the bands. But both are...
The government needs to put its house in order over how it approaches its much-publicised efficiency drive or it may find that the result is to make the public sector even less effective than it was...
