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...
Foundation trusts will not be able to opt out of the NHS's Agenda for Change pay deal, Health Secretary Alan Milburn confirmed this week as he launched a concerted campaign to quash opposition to the...
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...
Every local authority will be asked to explain its education budget decisions in an attempt to resolve the row between ministers and councils over allocations to schools.
Education Secretary...
Councils ranked 'excellent' in the Comprehensive Performance Assessments are becoming increasingly frustrated at the government's failure to deliver the promised freedoms and flexibilities.
The 22...
Local authority spending has risen by 26% since 1998, according to a new survey, with education leading the way.
The survey, by market intelligence service Key Note, shows that councils spent £77....
Just one in five young voters bothered to show up at the polling booth in the 2001 general election, the first major study of first-time voters has shown.
Researchers found that only 21% of 18 and...
Primary care t rusts must prepare for an exodus of clinical managers over the next two years, according to a survey by the NHS Alliance.
The body, which represents PCTs, said that half the doctors...
NHS consultants this week threatened industrial action over their contracts despite the government's abandonment of plans to make them work over weekends and in the evenings.
Last year, consultants...
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...
The government may have to impose measures to resolve employment disputes in outsourced council contracts after insiders claimed this week that negotiations between unions and business were fraught...
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...
Head teachers this week accused ministers of playing a deliberate 'smoke and mirrors' game with education budgets, using 'double or triple counting' tricks to play up bottom-line increases in funding...
If Amey, the cash-strapped former linchpin of the support services contracting world, were to rise from the ashes, it was hardly surprising that it should be under a foreign flag. Overseas firms have...
Local government is still plagued with 'severe' recruitment and retention problems that are placing unmanageable burdens on staff, forcing councils to privatise services because they cannot afford to...
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...
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.
The European Union's investigation into fraud in the Committee of the Regions, the body that represents Europe's local and regional government, is a 'storm in a teacup', a leading member claimed this...
The Fire Brigades Union has urged employers to 'look again' at independent proposals to end the firefighters' dispute after members rejected the 'full and final' offer this week.
Labour launched its local election campaign this week focusing on its improvements to public services, measures to tackle antisocial behaviour and the threat of Tory spending cuts.
Deputy Prime...
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...
Gordon Brown has the reputation of a chancellor who likes to spring surprises when he steps up to the dispatch box to deliver his Budget statement.
But this year the surprise came at the expense...
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...
An attempt by some Unison activists to block the government's overhaul of the NHS pay system failed this week, although rank-and-file members will have the final say on whether the initiative goes...
