Five years of radical changes in education policy have created thousands of academy and free schools. But have financial management and governance kept pace?
Gangs have moved online and globalised to commit the biggest ever bank robbery. So how can the public sector defend its networks from the ‘spear phishers’ of 21st century Crime Inc?
The National Infrastructure Plan is the £466bn pipeline that underpins the Treasury’s growth strategy. It enjoys bipartisan political support but something is missing. Does the...
When the Audit Commission was founded in 1983 its earliest staff members were excited by the opportunity to standardise and professionalise public sector audit, in a climate of independent scrutiny....
Smart technologies can make our cities work better. But to face the challenges ahead, including population growth and transport, we also need our towns and villages to become ‘smart communities’
Public Health England now distributes the £2.8bn grant to councils as they work to improve the health of the people. Everything from planning to parks, and education to employment, can play a role.
Delivering world-class public audit in changing circumstances demands that we think differently and experiment. Scotland is pointing the way, writes Caroline Gardner
Public audit needs to shape up and become more interventionist, writes Sir Derek Myers. The economic climate demands that it’s in the front seat, driving change
Public audit requires a different set of skills and experience from the private sector, writes Rob Whiteman. This is one of many issues that the new assurance arrangements fail to address
As the Audit Commission finally shuts its doors, there are a host of outstanding questions about practicality, cost and the value of public audit, writes Marcine Waterman
The forces of austerity and marketisation are sweeping through the English public sector, writes Gareth Davies. What must public auditors do to keep up?
The trebling of tuition fees appears unlikely to produce expected savings for the Exchequer. And graduates will repay twice as much, nursing debts well into their 50s. So what’s gone wrong?
Public workers' pay remains under pressure as the deficit stubbornly refuses to shrink. But what counts as public sector pay in a world of outsourcing to the private sector and what does the...
Councils have borne the brunt of the coalition’s public spending cuts, and lost nearly half their core funding in five years. Torn between raising council tax and losing their ‘freeze...
The public sector often struggles to innovate - there’s no shortage of ideas, but does it have the culture, structures and skills required to exploit the innovative thinking that is generated?
Valerie Pierce suggests ways to take the weight off your shoulders when the competing demands of the job pile up and conflicting priorities threaten your sense of perspective – and the morale of
your...
Charities’ critics want to curb their campaigning and make the sector pick up the pieces as the state withdraws from service provision. Not quite the Big Society vision it had in mind
The digital revolution means the ways we communicate are fragmenting. So how do employers and staff talk to each other, and how should we use social media to tell the outside world about what we...
Every year the Treasury gathers financial data from nearly 4,000 public bodies – from Whitehall departments to academy schools – to publish the Whole of Government Accounts. This ambitious exercise...
As NHS staff ballot on industrial action – and discontent rises over pay and salary progression throughout the public sector – years of severe pay restraint are taking their toll
There are now 4,000 academies but, as the education baton passes to Nicky Morgan, it may turn out that Michael Gove’s real legacy is in curriculum and teaching reforms
The health reforms were meant to create a fast-track, patient-centred service. Rising waiting times and A&E admissions – and confusion over GP commissioning and care funding – suggest...
The Treasury has seriously mishandled the new fee regime for universities, resulting in zero expected savings for the public coffers. And the chancellor’s scrapping of controls on student...
