Brighton and Hove City Council faces major problems raising at least £100m to improve its homes after tenants voted three to one against transfer to a housing association.
The first signs of a breakthrough in Whitehall's industrial relations dispute emerged this week when the Cabinet Office assumed responsibility for a government-wide assessment of privatisation plans.
Ministers would set the education and community care budgets of every council in Scotland and take responsibility for managing these services under a radical plan drawn up by a leading civil servant.
The emergency use of police cells to tackle prison overcrowding equates to almost half of the Prison Service's spare capacity, the Home Office revealed this week.
Children's services in hospitals are poor because they are underfunded and not given the priority they deserve, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said this week.
The future of public service delivery by the voluntary sector needs careful consideration, the charity regulator warned this week as many organisations are not recouping all their costs.
Northern Ireland's 26 district councils have fixed their rates for 2007/08 the first to be based on properties' capital values as at January 2005 rather than nominal rental values.
A council heavily criticised in a watchdog report has become the first in Scotland to cut its council tax since local government was reorganised in 1996.
Ministers will this week assure MPs that legislation will be amended to ensure that NHS trusts are required to work with councils to meet locally agreed targets.
An acute shortage of social housing is reducing tenants' mobility and failing to offer them an incentive to find work, says a government-commissioned review.
The Olympic Development Agency this week found itself on the receiving end of some peculiarly apposite historical advice: don't wait for China to deliver your great leap forward.
Seventeen of the first 26 academy schools commissioned under the government's controversial programme overspent their agreed capital budgets, the public spending watchdog has revealed.
The funding system for adult social care is unsustainable and undesirable and should be replaced with an 'Every Older Person Matters' programme, central and local government leaders have said.
The man reviewing the UK's 'welfare to work' system will suggest a substantial transfer of responsibilities for long-term unemployed benefit recipients to the private and voluntary sectors.
The NHS will improve on its 2005/06 deficit of £547m by just £110m, a Department of Health report has forecast, despite staff cutbacks and rationing of patient services.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has defended its private finance programme for waste disposal, saying that councils are better protected from risk.
The General Medical Council will provide more support to NHS employers wishing to address concerns about doctors under proposals published by the government this week.
A wide-ranging review of Prison Service finances could introduce damaging changes to staff pay and grading systems, Whitehall's largest trade union has warned.
Scottish councils have cut their financial reserves for the first time in recent years after facing 'significant and steadily increasing' costs, the Accounts Commission has found.
Social landlords must be willing to borrow substantially more from private lenders so that twice as many homes for rent can be built each year, the Housing Corporation warned this week.
