Social service leaders are giving their cautious co-operation to a scheme to send vulnerable children to boarding school, but are warning that the project runs counter to the rest of the child...
Council tax in Scotland should be replaced by a new property tax requiring householders to pay 0.9% of the value of their home annually, the Burt committee on the future of local government finance...
The Scottish Qualifications Authority, at the centre of a major controversy over inaccurate and incomplete exam results six years ago, has re-established confidence in its work, Audit Scotland has...
Wales was always bound to go its own distinctive way on the issue of public service reform. Now, as the Welsh Assembly Government prepares to respond to his review, Sir Jeremy Beecham explains why
A surge in new medical treatments combined with an ageing population mean the demands on the NHS are set to rise just as it faces a financial squeeze. A co-payments system, with built-in protection...
The economic case for joint working in the public sector must be clearly established before plans for shared services are implemented, leading finance officials in Scotland have advised.
The significant growth in Scottish health expenditure in recent years has not been matched by improvements in services, auditor general Bob Black has suggested.
It's one thing to demand that local authorities prove they have achieved desired outcomes, but quite another to do it. Arthur Midwinter argues for a more realistic approach to performance measurement...
Plans to increase benefit payments to single parents seeking work will have a limited impact because little is being done to keep them in the labour market, a former welfare minister has warned.
Some depressed areas of the UK are set to lose out under a shake-up in EU regional aid. But how much of a problem is this? As Sally Gainsbury reports, the grants scheme has been something of a mixed...
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 Scottish Executive has performed well against most of its transport targets but should provide a fuller picture of what is being achieved for a rising, multi-billion pound investment, auditor...
Tighter controls over the financing and accountability of Parliamentary 'czars' have been recommended by an influential committee of the Scottish Parliament.
The Treasury wants to cut costs, and police pay is on the hit list. That means officers could be paid less for doing more. And in these dangerous times, the performance ramifications could be very...
Public sector employment in Scotland has risen by 11% since devolution, with the largest increase in local government, latest statistics have revealed.
Local and central government are under intense scrutiny, as a plethora of inquiries and reviews get set to report by the end of the year. But with near-civil war gripping the government, how likely...
Councils in Scotland are in line for extra funding of around £100m to ease pressure on budgets and limit council tax rises in the year of elections to the Holyrood Parliament and local authorities.
