Councils are pressing ahead with plans to borrow through the bond market for the first time in more than two decades, despite the cut in public borrowing interest rates, Public Finance has been told.
Planned increases in council workers' pension contributions could be avoided, the umbrella body of councils in England and Wales has told minsters today.
Local authorities could be given the power to charge an additional tax on owners of homes that have been empty for more than two years, a Liberal Democrat minister has announced.
The doomed attempt to streamline fire control services in England is 'one of the worst cases of project failure' the Public Accounts Committee has seen, its chair said today.
Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has admitted that the government was 'a tad optimistic' to believe the Community Budgets initiative could be co-ordinated across Whitehall without a minister...
The audit work of the outgoing Audit Commission will be outsourced in ten lots grouped in four English regions and valued at around £89.4m, it has been announced.
There has been a huge rise in insolvencies in the health and social care sector, with an increase of 49% in the first six months of this year alone, research shows.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has called on councils to give at least three months’ notice of any funding cuts to charities in a bid to protect them from disproportionate reductions.
Away from the sound and fury of the controversial NHS changes, another revolution is quietly taking place – the transfer of public health to town halls. Noel Plumridge looks at what this will mean...
The abolition of the Audit Commission is going to change the shape of public sector audit forever but many questions are still unanswered. PF looks at what the future holds and talks exclusively to...
The tendering process to outsource millions of pounds worth of public sector audit contracts will aim to encourage new players to enter the market, Audit Commission bosses have told Public Finance
Giving local authorities control of Council Tax Benefit certainly fits in with ministers’ localism plans. But by combining it with a 10% grant cut, the coalition is also passing the buck for cutting...
Councils feel they are being transported back to the 1980s, as severe grant and budget cuts pile on the pressure to contract out services to save money. But they can gain or lose from the experience...
