Claims that Downing Street could halt future mayoral elections because of fears they might lead to increasing support for neo-Nazi parties and other fringe candidates were dismissed this week.
Union leaders have opened another front in the local government pay dispute, writing to new administrations to urge them to 'look after the interests' of staff.
The future outline of English regional government was laid out on May 9 when Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Local Government Secretary Stephen Byers launched the regions white paper.
A £90m Private Finance Initiative scheme for schools in Newcastle was this week heralded as 'the future of local service provision in the region', after a historic agreement extended workers'...
District Audit, the biggest supplier of accounting information to the Audit Commission, has uncovered £40m of public sector fraud in 2000/01, according to its annual report.
Local government leaders are demanding an urgent meeting with the government to clarify the effects that a World Trade Organisation agreement will have on local authorities.
The Department of Health has paved the way for a rapid increase in the number of managers in Primary Care Trusts this week after they were given the freedom to spend what they need on management.
Schools in England's most crime-ridden areas are being offered their own personal police officers as part of the government's latest initiative to cut down on truancy and anti-social behaviour.
Money will follow the patient. Trusts will be paid on results. Hospitals that treat more patients will receive more money. GP-led commissioning bodies will be able to scrap deals with local NHS care...
Backbench councillors and the general public feel 'disillusioned' with the introduction of Cabinet-style local leadership because they are excluded from the democratic process, MPs were told this...
The Criminal Records Bureau has promised to rectify its 'appalling' service standards after apologising to nearly 100 local authorities that had complained bitterly of an 'administrative fiasco'.
Council taxpayers in Bedfordshire may be asked to stump up around £500 each to cover the cost of the riot at Yarl's Wood detention centre, it was revealed this week.
Senior backbencher Edward Leigh has slated the government for failing to develop systems for measuring the success of its e-government programme two years after pledging to do so.
The chair of the Labour Party has dismissed this week's technology pilots for the local elections, pledging instead to boost voter turnouts through traditional pavement politics.
Public services are to receive an extra £4bn in 2003/04, with over half allocated to the health service, Chancellor Gordon Brown announced in this week's Budget.
NHS managers dazzled by this week's £40bn Budget boost called on the government to trust them to improve the health service. But they warned ministers not to expect instant results.
English local authorities have doubled the amount of useful products they retrieve from household waste since 1996/97, according to new government figures.
The Department for Environment, Food and...
The government's housing transfer programme was back on course this week after Liverpool tenants voted to switch 13,500 homes to registered social landlords.
Members of the Best Value Review Group fear that ministers will fail to effect substantial change because the government is too concerned with juggling the interests of employers and the unions...
The three big public sector unions have overwhelmingly rejected local authorities' pay offer, paving the way for the first national strike by local government staff since the 1970s.
