Twenty-five years on from the birth of the Audit Commission, is it time for a radical rethink on public sector inspection and regulation, asks David Walker
About a third of Scotland's schools are still in a poor condition, despite billions of pounds of investment over the past decade, a major report by public sector watchdogs has found.
Over the next two years, nine new English unitary authorities will be created out of 44 existing district and county councils. Paul O'Brien discusses how to take the pain out of the process
John Swinney has insisted that the Scottish government's local income tax plans are 'robust' and can be delivered, despite the flood of criticism that greeted the publication of his consultation...
Scots would get their biggest tax cut in a generation under the Scottish National Party government's plans for a local income tax, Finance Secretary John Swinney has claimed.
Chief officers of public services in Scotland remain to be convinced of the benefits of shared services and whether these can produce projected savings of £750m, a survey has found.
John Swinney has achieved the impossible twice in his first nine months as Scotland's finance secretary. But can the former Scottish National Party leader score a much-needed hat trick? He talked...
Prime Minister Gordon Brown should hold a root-and-branch review of English governance and the Barnett funding formula, the Institute for Public Policy Research said this week.
The 1997 Single Status Agreement was supposed to end unequal pay in local government. But a decade on, women are still underpaid, thousands of cases are clogged up in tribunals and workers are on the...
Scotland's largest local authority is to shed more than 400 posts following its decision to freeze council tax in line with the policy of the Scottish government.
The future of the Scottish National Party government led by First Minister Alex Salmond was secured when its first budget was approved by MSPs this week.
A council strongly criticised for its performance has been told to speed up improvement by the Accounts Commission, the local government watchdog for Scotland.
Scotland's groundbreaking policy of providing free personal and nursing care for elderly people was introduced without sufficient clarity about whether it was a universal entitlement or one dependent...
The Scottish government has asked the Accounts Commission to co-ordinate the scrutiny of council functions until longer-term changes are made to the regulatory regime.
