The pressure is on for public bodies to share services in order to make efficiency savings. But there are considerable risks as well as rewards in taking this approach. Paul Jackson offers ten top...
Collaboration between councils and other public bodies will help protect frontline services from the worst effects of the recession, according to a CIPFA report
Multiple layers of expensive bureaucracy stand between central and local government, reducing accountability and efficient provision of services. It’s time to put these quangos on the bonfire and...
Councils will be given a settlement of £76.2bn for the coming financial year, a rise of 4%, the Department for Communities and Local Government has confirmed
Ministers are giving tacit backing to a Private Members’ Bill that could significantly extend the powers of councils to oversee local services and utilities
A deal might not have come out of Copenhagen, but the public sector still faces scrutiny of its CO2 emissions. Many larger public bodies are covered by the Carbon Reduction Commitment, which comes...
The chair of the Audit Commission is to launch a defence of the regulator’s new local government inspection regime, arguing it is an essential tool in making services more accountable
Deputy Prime Minister Harriet Harman has vowed to fight discrimination against elderly people, promising new rights for carers and extra obligations on public services
Local government is failing to save money by sharing back-office operations and must be forced by legislation to do so, a leading consultancy firm has said
The nation’s ever-expanding fiscal gap was examined recently in a video debate organised by PricewaterhouseCoopers and chaired by Public Finance editor Mike Thatcher – and asks, is it time to face...
Another London borough has criticised the new inspection arrangements for local services, suggesting they are inappropriate in a climate of public sector spending cuts
