New Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain has thrown down the gauntlet in a green paper designed to get the long-term unemployed into jobs. But, as Mark Conrad reports, there are some tricky battles...
There are huge regional differences between residents' attitudes towards reform of their local waste collection services and also the recycling schemes offered by councils, a national survey has...
First Minister Alex Salmond appears set for a clash with Whitehall over the Scottish National Party's plans to issue bonds as an alternative to public-private partnerships.
Audit Scotland is to draw up an improvement plan for its Best Value audits, following an independent review. That highlighted inconsistencies in approach, the need to link better with other...
A £4bn regeneration agency that will replace the Housing Corporation within two years is to be rebranded just six months after it was christened Communities England.
Housing is back at the top of the political agenda, with a green paper promising to solve the affordable housing crisis. But how is the new prime minister going to square a return to social rented...
Voluntary sector involvement in public service delivery is blighted by poor commissioning and perceived conflicts with European Union competition rules, the Audit Commission has found.
The Local Government Employers organisation has issued an urgent notice warning councils to resume meaningful negotiations with unions or risk expensive litigation over a potential £5bn gender pay...
Town halls were celebrating a 'victory for common sense' this week after the High Court ruled in their favour in a dispute with Whitehall over the distribution of a special grant designed to reward...
Eight arm's-length management organisations and a further two council-led bids are among 38 new investment partners announced by the Housing Corporation.
Gordon Brown's new ministerial team has ditched plans to create 'mega-contractors' that would enjoy lucrative regional monopolies in the forthcoming privatisation of jobseeker programmes.
Communities in the Thames Valley were bracing themselves for more flooding as operations continued to restore tap water supplies to 350,000 people in western England after thousands of hectares were...
Ministers have bowed to pressure from councils and social landlords by pledging to nearly double the number of affordable homes built each year by the start of the next decade.
Nine of the 16 bids for unitary status submitted by English local authorities have been given the green light by local government minister John Healey.
Business leaders have warned that the private sector is receiving mixed signals from the Department of Health over the future role it can play in the NHS.
Antisocial behaviour measures cost £3.6bn a year, but there is no systematic evaluation of whether that money could be better spent, the Commons Public Accounts Committee has found.
In the early days of New Labour, the Private Finance Initiative was seen as the only game in town for funding major public sector projects, but the Metronet crisis could mean the game is up, writes...
An intense focus on outcomes is essential if the public sector is to deliver real value, says Geoffrey Filkin. Here he argues that government can achieve better performance without committing extra...
Now that politicians have promoted sustainability from token policy pledge to manifesto must-have, Public Finance 's latest round table posed the question of how local authorities can save the...
When Gordon Brown first got his feet under the table at the Treasury way back in 1997 he promised to hit the ground running. Ten years on and his protégé Ed Balls has wasted no time in...
