Local authorities should push ahead with rapid adoption of the controversial accounting rule FRS17 or face a separate standard that could unveil £2bn of pension fund liabilities across the UK,...
The Criminal Records Bureau will continue outsourcing work to a call centre in India for the 'foreseeable future', despite clearing its 50,000 backlog in criminal record checks.
The local government pay dispute edged tentatively towards a resolution this week, after the employers indicated they may raise their 3% offer to 4.1% - but only for some staff.
Nick Raynsford has overridden the Audit Commission's advice and given Kingston upon Hull City Council one final chance to tackle its problems before intervening in the crisis-hit authority.
As industrial action by council workers, train drivers and firefighters escalates are we witnessing a new era of union militancy that echoes the 1979 'winter of discontent'?
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is to spend the summer battling the rest of Whitehall for a reduction in use of ringfenced grants to councils, now totalling £10bn.
A cross-party report has called for the government to support 'pioneering local initiatives' as well as more realistic funding to secure the future of social care.
The government has moved to tackle bed-blocking with a series of measures designed to make social services more responsive, increase the number of available care home beds and allow more old people...
Local government minister Nick Raynsford faces new arguments over the government's code of practice on the two-tier workforce after the long-awaited draft was published this week.
Iain Duncan Smith's reshuffle of the Conservative front bench heralds 'good news' for the party in local government, according to a senior Local Government Association Tory.
Milton Keynes Council and Northamptonshire County Council have voted to press on with a joint £400m public-private partnership, despite fears over the future of one of the bidding companies.
MPs have slated the government for reneging on its promise to liberate councils from Whitehall control and demanded a 'major reappraisal' of the draft bill intended to deliver new freedoms.
District Audit and Inspection Service functions are to be integrated for the first time under a shake-up of internal structures unveiled by the Audit Commission this week.
Whitehall departments that benefited from Gordon Brown's largesse in Monday's long-awaited Spending Review will be expected to meet 'demanding' national targets.
Local authorities are in line for an average increase of 4.2% in central grant over the next three years, prompting accusations that local services are being pushed to the back of the spending queue.
Local government unions were this week set to unveil plans for a 'widespread escalation of industrial action' after being given the cold shoulder by employers in the wake of the first national strike...
Nick Raynsford has revealed a talent for nifty conjuring tricks in his proposals for reforming the notoriously complex Standard Spending Assessment, the method by which authorities receive their...
Walsall Council averted the threat of government intervention this week after agreeing to remove its entire top management team and appoint an interim chief executive.
Just one in four local authorities believes that it will be granted greater financial freedoms as a result of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment framework, research has revealed.
Relations between central and local government need to be radically transformed and much of Whitehall's power relinquished to town halls, Iain Duncan Smith has told local government leaders.
