Outsourcing education services to private companies is meant to iron out performance problems, but its critics in the public sector claim it's a far from ideal solution that often makes things worse.
What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, the then Audit Commission chair James Strachan was reserved in his praise for councils' financial management. Shortly afterwards, he unexpectedly...
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.
The rules of the much-debated Private Finance Initiative game are about to change. The Office for National Statistics is soon expected to start counting a new tranche of PFI deals against public...
Doug Smith's resignation as chief executive of the Child Support Agency is not so much a solution to a crisis, more the beginning of a new chapter in an 11-year saga.
One of the biggest criticisms levied at Sir Peter Gershon's Whitehall efficiency review is that any sincere attempt to quantify public sector waste has been lost in the resulting 'machismo' exhibited...
Last week, Health Secretary John Reid outlined how he intends to save £500m on NHS bureaucracy by slashing the number of quangos. But the real work has only just begun.
When the NHS was established in 1948, Nye Bevan believed its effect on the nation's health would be so profound that future governments would not have to increase its budget greatly.
If Amey, the cash-strapped former linchpin of the support services contracting world, were to rise from the ashes, it was hardly surprising that it should be under a foreign flag. Overseas firms have...
Gordon Brown has the reputation of a chancellor who likes to spring surprises when he steps up to the dispatch box to deliver his Budget statement.
But this year the surprise came at the expense...
As the British government muses over the future of local democracy, a cluster of countries is grappling with the gargantuan task of creating local government in a bid to join the European Union.
The Post Office did not conceal its anger at the government's announcement this week that it is scrapping the £500m benefits card project as was widely suggested two weeks ago but denied by the...
