Delegates to next week's annual social services conference are still reeling from the last round of organisational shake-ups. Now there is more change on the way, with a new children's green paper...
New Audit Commission chair Michael O'Higgins is quietly determined to turn up the heat on his inspectors to ensure they stay in touch. And he is no slouch in the kitchen either, as he tells Joseph...
The Home Office has undervalued the cost of its controversial ID card scheme, critics have warned, despite ministers' claims this week that it would cost taxpayers £5.4bn over ten years.
The public should be able to influence the quality of services through the greater use of choice mechanisms such as the NHS's payment by results, the new chair of the Audit Commission has told...
A future Conservative government should curtail school selection and establish a 'very different agenda' to the vouchers policy on which the party fought the last election, shadow education secretary...
Government guidelines to ensure no child misses out on an education are being ignored by up to 84% of local authorities, research for the Department for Education and Skills has found.
Northern Ireland's finance department has begun procurement for the supply of 'Network NI' a managed, wide-area network that ministers say is central to the modernisation of public services.
Many public sector managers believe they are being prevented from doing their jobs effectively because of red tape, a lack of resources and poor support from employers, according to the Chartered...
Just when everyone thought that Tomlinson's 14 19 diploma idea was over, key elements of it are being revived via a range of new vocational courses. But there are many financial and other challenges...
New nuclear reactors the clean, green answer to the UK's growing energy problems, or expensive, hazardous white elephants? The government appears to have made its mind up, and is rewriting local...
The Lyons Inquiry will have to find a way to make council tax fairer without the benefit of a revaluation of English homes. Peter Kenway and Ines Newman go back to basic principles and explain how...
Annual budgets, monitored monthly, are inappropriate in many fast-moving parts of the public sector. They could learn from the 'flexible business management' approach recently adopted by the IDA
The Conservatives have not just got a new logo but a brand new set of policies. Both might be a bit sketchy, but have they got the potential to grow into something more meaningful? Alex Klaushofer...
Gordon Brown's plans to devolve more executive power offer a real chance of opening up debate over government spending, starting with the Comprehensive Spending Review. But Colin Talbot somehow...
Union leaders are warning the government that it faces losing the next general election unless it radically rethinks its policy on public services and halts the march towards marketisation.
Alan Johnson has vowed to unveil wide-ranging proposals next month to put a stop to the 'chill indifference' of the state to children in care and banish the deep-seated disadvantage that condemns...
The city of Manchester has earned the right to take on greater self-government, economic researchers said this week in a report that gives a boost to the city-region agenda.
Pressure is mounting on the European Commission to publish a legal framework establishing the limits to which public services must abide by its rules on free market competition.
