Sixty years of the welfare state have failed to ensure that those in most need of public services have adequate access to them, leading to 'wide and persisting inequality', research has found.
As soon as the A-level results are announced, the arguments start, as the qualification is denounced and celebrated in turn. But in the furore, the practical questions about the exam tend to be...
It's difficult to see local government as the stuff of good theatre. But David Edgar's play uses infighting at a failing council to make some trenchant points about democracy. Joseph McHugh reports
The IRA's decision to end armed conflict finally gives Northern Ireland's citizens the chance of a normal life. But this means setting up democratic systems to replace political structures built...
It seems the 'Berlin Wall' dividing health and social care might finally be coming down, as ministers finalise a combined white paper. But will this lead to a merger of social services departments...
The coalition of charities acting on behalf of older people has reacted angrily to the government's watering down of the Office of Fair Trading's recommendations to give elderly care home residents a...
An extra £65m is to be spent on health centres, clinics and other primary care facilities in Scotland, First Minister Jack McConnell announced this week.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has asked local government pension funds to recalculate the disputed cost of revoking last April's increase in the scheme's retirement age to 65.
Business leaders have dismissed regional development agencies as irrelevant to the success of their companies, saying they do not understand their role or even why they exist.
Internet-based information about public services could encourage social exclusion and segregation, research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found.
Finally, a hospital waiting time target that should genuinely help patients. But can the tough new plan to cut the time from GP referral to treatment to 18 weeks be achieved? Anthony Harrison and...
Britain still dumps most of its rubbish in landfill sites, instead of recycling it. But tough new European Union regulations are set to change all that. David Meilton reports on how councils are...
Many of Bexley council's school pupils were being educated in huts, with winds raging through broken windows. Then the chance of a £30m PFI refurbishment programme came along. Mike Ellsmore explains...
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's review of the local government grant formula must take greater account of the extra cost of providing essential public services to far-flung rural...
The civil service does need urgent reform to bring it into line with other parts of the public sector, argues Sir Michael Bichard. But legislation is not the answer
For all the talk of a dramatic urban renaissance, population flight from Britain's city centres to suburbia and the countryside continues apace. Tony Travers explains what needs to be done to reverse...
Sir Gus O'Donnell is soon to take over the Whitehall hot seat newly vacated by Sir Andrew Turnbull. Will he follow in his reforming steps or take a different path? Mark Conrad finds out
Birmingham City Council has this week confirmed that it will offer emergency loans to uninsured residents whose properties were damaged by the tornado that tore through the city on July 28.
Two-thirds of local authorities have had their plans to meet the decent homes target approved by ministers but almost 10% missed this week's cut-off date for submitting firm proposals.
NHS managers will not know what hit them. Despite government assurances that there would be no significant reorganisation following the general election,
Local authorities are vulnerable to a legal challenge that their outsourced services breach new European Union rules designed to avoid the overpayment of contractors, Public Finance has learnt.
