NHS trusts that fail to implement National Institute for Clinical Excellence guidance on anti-cancer drugs and other treatments will receive lower star ratings, the Healthcare Commission and
the...
Government plans to end the exclusion of people with mental health problems from opportunities in employment, education and housing should become a 'watershed', a leading charity said this week.
The auditor general for Scotland, Bob Black, has called for improvements in the management of Scottish Enterprise's business support service to achieve value for money from its £40m funding.
The government is to draw up a ten-year strategy for local government that will herald a 'new settlement' of the relationship between town halls and Whitehall.
All local public services should be scrutinised by 'select committees' of councillors to ensure that unelected bodies are held accountable to the public, a think-tank has recommended.
The Local Government Association is to reform radically its member structure, replacing its 'static and old-fashioned' committees with cross-cutting boards in an attempt to widen its influence on...
To lose one key policy adviser may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose four looks like either carelessness or preparation for a change in leadership. Either way, a clear-out among Tony Blair's...
The planned new children's commissioner will have the power to order investigations without first seeking authorisation from ministers after all, Margaret Hodge has told MPs.
The stalemate over pay and conditions in local government has been broken with employers and unions agreeing to consult on an improved 8.9% three-year pay deal.
From time to time, evidence of invisible people and invisible jobs appear on the government’s radar screen: when the Census didn’t make sense, when cockle- pickers died in Morecambe Bay....
Senior private sector figures have pointed the finger at government organisations and blamed them for refusing to make information on Private Finance Initiative deals available to the public.
Camden council has stepped up its campaign against record industry giants' illegal fly-posting by seeking an interim court order preventing companies from flouting the law while it awaits a landmark...
The government is steeling itself to lose control of large cities and towns in its traditional northern heartlands when the urban centres outside London go to the polls next week.
Frantic weekend activity was not enough to ensure that the official deadline for despatch of ballot papers was met by all the councils participating in the government's postal voting experiment.
An influential Scottish Parliament committee has rejected local authority claims that cash generated by efficiency savings should be reinvested by individual councils.
Government auditors have endorsed the overall reliability of asylum statistics but warn that some aspects of them are 'misleading' because of the way they are presented.
Local income tax should be levied only by large multi-service authorities and at a rate selected from a fixed menu of around five, according to new research from CIPFA.
Delivering the new in-depth auditing arrangements for Scotland's councils will be one of the main priorities of the controller of audit, Caroline Gardner, whose appointment was announced last week.