Local Government Association chair Sir Jeremy Beecham has launched a renewed defence of the public service ethos and the value of 'vigorous local democracy'.
Efforts to minimise pressure on the health service this winter went up a gear this week as leading figures warned that the NHS faces a tough three months.
The chair of the body set up to examine how contracts are awarded under Best Value has reassured local authorities they will not have new regulations forced on them.
Audit Commission controller Andrew Foster this week called for a radical streamlining of NHS audit and inspection in order to drive out inefficiencies and duplication in the current system.
Ministerial interference in next year's finance settlement is threatening to divide local government, with London boroughs accusing the government of trying to cheat them out of £49m to placate its...
Health Secretary Alan Milburn ushered Best Value into the NHS last week, abandoning almost two decades of compulsory market testing in support services such as cleaning and catering.
A supervision and surveillance scheme designed to curb the country's worst young offenders will do little to reduce youth crime, probation officers warned this week.
Local authorities are being urged to press ahead with setting up arm's-length housing management companies 18 months before they will be allowed to spend any extra money on their stock.
A directly elected mayor for just 22,000 people is hardly what Tony Blair had in mind for his new system of political governance, but one of England's smallest boroughs is leading the mayoral race.
Major repair programmes will be slashed and neighbourhood renewal schemes abandoned if the rent income raised by housing associations is seriously reduced, the government has been warned.
Housing association rents should not be kept artificially high so that registered social landlords can fund activities linked to neighbourhood renewal, housing minister Nick Raynsford warned this...
Local authorities are gearing up for annual spending spats with schools after the government backed down on its threat for direct education funding in this week's finance green paper.
Local authorities were trying to pick up the pieces of disrupted services as fuel began to trickle slowly back into garages and council depots after the government's ultimatum to petrol companies to...
Local authorities have voiced fears that next week's Finance green paper will be nothing more than a damp squib with vague proposals designed to smooth tensions until after the General Election.
Nearly three-quarters of London councils have altered their structures to take account of the move towards Cabinet-style decision-making set out in the Local Government Act.
A £1.3m government-funded research programme that will play a key role in deciding how Britain's local authorities meet new tough recycling targets over the next five years has been given away to...
The Local Government Association joined this week's manifesto frenzy in an attempt to halt the government's drive to marginalise councils in the run-up to the General Election.
The Conservatives' opening shots in the coming election campaign, featuring radical plans for change in education and local government, have been greeted with predictably swingeing criticism from...
