Chancellor Gordon Brown this week injected further momentum into the government's devolution agenda but the tone emerging from Number 11 points towards a regionalist approach at the expense of...
Regulation provided by the watchdog Postcomm has helped to improve the delivery of Royal Mail services, auditors have reported, but some targets go unmet, despite the threat of competition to the...
Auditors this week called on Whitehall departments to improve the data underpinning crucial government targets amid fears that more than half of Public Service Agreements are flawed.
Next week's Budget looks like being a return to form for the chancellor, thanks to a big rise in tax receipts. But is he on course to hit his political as well as economic targets? Peter Riddell...
The government narrowly failed to meet its ambitious target to reduce child poverty by a quarter by 2005, but senior sources are confident that the Department for Work and Pensions will achieve its...
Patients have failed to benefit from a new contract for consultants which has cost the NHS in Scotland an extra £235m over three years, Audit Scotland has found.
A shortage of NHS therapists is likely to force the government to outsource a crucial part of its welfare reforms, Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton has warned.
Unison has requested a judicial review of the government's proposed amendments to the Local Government Pension Scheme, saying its figures and reasoning are 'flawed' and 'absurd'.
Fears of a multibillion pound black hole in public sector pensions have brought forward calls for the chancellor to amend his fiscal rules. John Hawksworth analyses the options and calls on the...
In 2003, angry pensioners were taking to the streets as council tax soared, unchecked by government. This year, ministers cracked the whip and councils meekly complied. Tony Travers explains what's...
Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton has said that wider access to low-cost savings plans must emerge from the consultation on Lord Turner's retirement proposals.
Most local authorities want to make the most of their community powers and include social and environmental benefits in the contracts they award. But procurement law can be problematic
Almost a year to the day after Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott caved into pressure on pension rights, local government union members are once again being balloted for strike action on the issue.
Whitehall's largest department was this week accused of meeting its crucial job cuts target and efficiency savings by transferring staff to private sector partners who immediately make them redundant.
Social mobility has stalled, despite the government's best efforts to raise the aspirations of children from working-class homes. Effective reform of local services will be crucial to turning this...
Everyone agrees that the council tax is regressive but there's less consensus on the solution. The interim Lyons report plumped for reforming the benefit system and not the bands. But both are...
The Department for Work and Pensions has become the first major Whitehall body to sign up to the Office of Government Commerce's new on-line procurement service.
More than half of the savings made under Whitehall's efficiency agenda have effectively been wiped out by an unexpected rise in the cost of staff pensions across two sectors this year, it has emerged.
Trades Union Congress general secretary Brendan Barber is urging the government to hold its nerve and introduce a state-run national pensions scheme, warning ministers that the financial services...
