Service's 128 directly managed prisons in England and Wales spent £461m on essential supplies, while Prison Service headquarters spent a further £491m on central projects and services, such as...
Audit Scotland is developing a new system of auditing Best Value in Scottish councils which will bring a 'significant change' in approach and put the emphasis on performance results.
Plans to extend body-piercing regulation to all local authorities in England and Wales have been criticised as 'wishy-washy' by one London authority, which has overseen the practice for more than a...
The auditor general for Wales has demanded that the Welsh Assembly introduce more 'robust' procedures to ensure its audit recommendations are implemented on time, it emerged this week.
NHS financial discipline must be tightened and deficits eradicated, Welsh Health Minister Jane Hutt warned this week after a far-reaching review claimed that demand could overwhelm services in the...
Hopes that a deal on consultants' terms and conditions could be struck were raised this week when the new health secretary invited doctors' leaders to a meeting to discuss the way forward.
GPs are pushing for changes to the new contract they accepted overwhelmingly last week.
Though 79.4% of GPs voted in favour of the new contract, British Medical Association GP leader Dr John...
The way that public money has been given to homeowners to improve dilapidated properties in Wales has proved susceptible to fraud, and changes to be introduced next month could escalate problems,...
Local authority finance experts this week demanded more investment autonomy from Whitehall, after a survey commissioned by Public Finance revealed widespread support for new freedoms.
Investment...
Home Office officials this week defiantly defended the government's penal policy despite more evidence that Britain's jails are in crisis.
The department said there was 'no need for panic policy-...
Liverpool plans to spend more than £45m to make a success of its status as the 2008 European Capital of Culture, after it secured the UK nomination on June 4.
It defeated bids from five other...
The Scottish Executive is to set up a watchdog to oversee the operation of charities in the wake of controversy over the funding of a cancer research body.
Communities minister Margaret Curran...
Community health councils have welcomed the decision to delay their abolition by three months.
CHCs were due to be wound up on September 1 and be replaced with a system that includes patients'...
The rising cost of primary care drugs and clinical negligence claims has thrown NHS Wales's finances into chaos, it was claimed this week, with overall deficits of £44.1m threatening financial...
Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council is failing to meet its statutory duties to vulnerable children, and its services for adults are in need of 'radical overhaul', inspectors have found.
A damning...
Labour has held on to power in the devolved administrations, strengthening its position in the Welsh Assembly but losing six seats in the Scottish Parliament.
Welsh Labour leader Rhodri Morgan said...
Housing associations are finding it difficult to collect escalating rent arrears from tenants and 'a major rethink is needed', the Audit Commission warned this week.
A report by the local...
Though voter apathy remains an unsolved conundrum, every party was able to claim a small victory
Audible sighs of relief could be heard around the Westminster village in the aftermath of the...
May 1 was to have been the date when elections occurred in each of the three devolved nations of the United Kingdom Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Except, as is so often the case in the...
NHS consultants this week threatened industrial action over their contracts despite the government's abandonment of plans to make them work over weekends and in the evenings.
Last year, consultants...
Ministers are poised to create the first urban development corporation in ten years in an attempt to help house-building east of London.
Proposals for a UDC in Thurrock, Essex, were published by...