Joint reviews of social services in Wales place huge demands on local authorities but are leading to improvements in services, according to an independent evaluation.
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...
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...
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...
The Local Government Association has called for an additional £28m in central funding to councils to help them co-ordinate carbon emission reduction commitments, following the government's Energy...
High levels of public spending are exacerbating regional economic disparities and leading to dependency on central government handouts in some areas, according to a free market think-tank, Reform.
Sir Jeremy Beecham's review shows that reform of public services in Wales is on the right track but needs to progress further and faster. The Welsh Assembly Government welcomes the challenge
The police service is breathing a sigh of relief that it has been saved a costly and unnecessary restructuring but it still faces a catastrophic funding crisis from 2008. Chief constable Tim Brain...
One of devolved Scotland's first major policies was free personal care for the elderly. Four years on, how has it fared and does it offer any lessons for the rest of the UK? David Scott reports
Local services in Wales need a fundamental overhaul, with a tougher focus on poor performance and an end to the public sector's 'silo mentality', a wide-ranging review has concluded.
Government plans to amalgamate police forces across England and Wales were left in tatters this week after the only voluntary merger broke down once ministers failed to sanction the requisite council...
Civil servants at the Welsh Assembly are to hold emergency talks with the permanent secretary after accusing managers of trying to force through plans to slash staffing levels by 20% over the next...
Council workers in Scotland will have their early retirement pension rights protected for the next 14 years under a proposed transitional scheme which allows the Executive to comply with a European...
Scotland would lose many of the benefits of economic and financial integration with the rest of the UK if the Holyrood Parliament had powers to raise and spend its own taxes, the authors of a report...
Disagreement between local authorities over employee benefits in the Local Government Pension Scheme risks fragmenting and ultimately undermining it, unions have told Public Finance .
