With a Brown premiership predicted for any time soon, all bets are off as to what it will mean for one of Blair's most cherished 'legacy' issues public service reform. Tony Travers hacks through a...
The main reason why so many big outsourcing contracts run aground is the lack of any sort of mechanism to solve disputes before they get out of hand, argues Mark Amsden. But there is a wealth of...
Business rates need to be brought urgently back under local government control, argues Paul Raynes. The current system is inefficient, keeps councils in bondage, involves huge, unnecessary financial...
The government's target is to halve the numbers of UK children living in poverty by 2010. But success rests on adequate funding, and campaigners doubt that enough money will be provided in next year'...
Scottish councils are to receive extra revenue funding of £393m in 2007/08 an increase of 4.7% on last year, Finance Minister Tom McCabe has announced.
There must be no back-pedalling on reform as the health service seeks to recover financial balance, NHS chief executive David Nicholson told the Healthcare Financial Management Association annual...
Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell and a senior adviser to the prime minister this week urged Whitehall to focus on a four-pronged plan to improve public services amid further evidence that...
Another 49 councils are to set up systems offering tenants more choice over where they live, with £1.3m being awarded to 12 consortiums for choice-based lettings schemes.
No sooner had Chancellor Gordon Brown finished adding up his promised £36bn investment in education over the next four years than the economists were asking the inevitable question: 'How much of that...
Sir Michael Lyons' Inquiry into the future of local government has been delayed once more this time so that he can take into account the recommendations of the Barker, Eddington and Leitch reviews...
Housing associations could miss out on grants to build homes if they fail to work effectively with local authorities, the Housing Corporation warned this week.
As local authorities square up to the housing and care demands of older people, new public-private partnerships are emerging to enable housing associations to meet their needs. Melinda Phillips...
Halfway through its life, the government's efficiency programme is ahead of its targets. But with a fiscal squeeze on the way and no let-up in spending plans, the public sector is going to feel the...
Services for older people are 'teetering on the brink', Local Government Association chair Lord Sandy Bruce-Lockhart was due to tell the House of Lords on December 7.
Tackling antisocial behaviour costs taxpayers £3.4bn a year, but half of all antisocial behaviour orders are breached and some towns are dogged by perceived threats of yobbish acts, a study has...