The Liberal Democrat leadership this week called on members to support a bold range of new policy proposals designed to give the party a real chance of electoral success by the end of the decade.
Patient and Public Involvement forums might be reformed along very similar lines to the recently abolished Community Health Councils, health minister Rosie Winterton said this week.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is considering proposals to expand the powers of local authority overview and scrutiny committees, so they would be able to hold government departments and...
The architect of Whitehall's £40bn savings plan believes ministers will seek to achieve public sector efficiencies beyond the target date of 2008 because of the political imperative to restrain...
The inquiry into local government funding has been widened, but the same questions remain, namely those of devolution, fairness, and how to tackle the public's understanding of the way councils work
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are meant to be as one on the need for radical public sector reform. But as Blair embarks on one of his last Party conferences as PM, his quest for a legacy is bringing...
They call him the 'smiling assassin' and he's certainly ruthless about improving education. DfES permanent secretary Sir David Normington talks to Maria McHale about his role and rumours of an...
Senior local government figures queued up to criticise the government this week after David Miliband announced that the council tax revaluation exercise was being shelved and the Lyons funding...
The National Union of Teachers has welcomed the Department for Education and Skills' hardline approach to school absenteeism, which will target the parents of 8,000 'serial truants'.
Local government leaders threw down a challenge to ministers this week, volunteering to take on a range of tough new responsibilities in exchange for greater freedom from central regulation.
The rules of the much-debated Private Finance Initiative game are about to change. The Office for National Statistics is soon expected to start counting a new tranche of PFI deals against public...
Senior trade unionists have called on Chancellor Gordon Brown to make good his commitment to the 2004 Warwick accord, amid concerns that public employers are using a loophole in the two-tier...
Social landlords are being sold short by the government in their attempts to build sustainable communities, the new leader of England's housing associations warned this week.
New Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has told local government leaders that he will be urging central government departments to allow local authorities more flexibility in the way they spend their...
Whitehall should be subject to a performance inspection regime similar to the one already in place for local government, the head of the Office of Government Commerce said this week.
City academies must not be allowed to opt out of co-operation with other schools in their area, head teachers warned this week as the prime minister announced an acceleration in the programme.
The London bombings are putting long-established 'community cohesion' policies to the test and threatening to hijack them in the name of a quick fix for terrorism.
The legislative process needs to be pared down and made subject to 'sunset clauses' if more trust is to be built up between central and local government, argue George Jones and John Stewart
Mammoth PFI commitments appear to have had their day in the NHS, now that the government is prizing competition above all else. Smaller, self-financed projects are emerging as the way forward
John Hutton, the government minister for public service reform, last week vowed that central targets would continue, despite mounting criticism from local councils and think-tanks such as the Social...
