Local authorities are in line for an average increase of 4.2% in central grant over the next three years, prompting accusations that local services are being pushed to the back of the spending queue.
Local government unions were this week set to unveil plans for a 'widespread escalation of industrial action' after being given the cold shoulder by employers in the wake of the first national strike...
Nick Raynsford has revealed a talent for nifty conjuring tricks in his proposals for reforming the notoriously complex Standard Spending Assessment, the method by which authorities receive their...
Walsall Council averted the threat of government intervention this week after agreeing to remove its entire top management team and appoint an interim chief executive.
District Audit and Inspection Service functions are to be integrated for the first time under a shake-up of internal structures unveiled by the Audit Commission this week.
Whitehall departments that benefited from Gordon Brown's largesse in Monday's long-awaited Spending Review will be expected to meet 'demanding' national targets.
Dan Corry, the former special adviser to local government secretary Stephen Byers, is to take over as executive director of the New Local Government Network.
Just one in four local authorities believes that it will be granted greater financial freedoms as a result of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment framework, research has revealed.
Relations between central and local government need to be radically transformed and much of Whitehall's power relinquished to town halls, Iain Duncan Smith has told local government leaders.
Union leaders have branded as a 'disgrace' Tony Blair's refusal to intervene in the local government pay dispute as the first national strike by council workers in 23 years looms next week.
'Sometimes the civil service is very efficient. Within five minutes of a secretary of state going, you have your redundancy papers,' says Dan Corry, the former and now infamous special adviser to...
County councils could lose up to £800m as a result of proposed reforms to the distribution of the Standard Spending Assessment unveiled by the government on July 5.
The introduction of a controversial accounting standard that could expose billions of pounds of pension fund liabilities in the public sector has been delayed, it was announced this week.
Local government leaders' patience finally snapped this week as they hit out at ministers for forcing through the Comprehensive Performance Assessment regime without delivering the extra freedoms...
The majority of the public believe moves to allow the private and voluntary sectors as well as overseas operators to treat NHS patients will improve standards of care, according to a Mori poll for...
Financial control of a flagship health service partnership in Bedfordshire was so poor that the scheme had effectively collapsed within months, a District Audit report has found.
The Comprehensive Performance Assessment seems to have annihilated its unloved predecessor, despite the Audit Commission's protestations to the contrary. But all is far from rosy in the embryonic new...
Home Secretary David Blunkett has laid out his vision of a Britain free from racial prejudice and described the country as an open nation 'enriched by immigration'.
A private contractor that led calls for a new public service ethos in the provision of local services has given a cool reception to MPs' proposals to protect staff terms and conditions.
Directly elected mayors edged closer to the political dustbin this week after a government U-turn gave councils traditionally opposed to the policy the final decision on holding mayoral...
