Opposition MPs have called for an 'urgent and independent' investigation into the alleged failure of the tax credits system to deal adequately with fraud.
A London borough has called off any further stock transfer ballots after tenants on five estates rejected plans to switch their homes to housing associations.
Senior staff at the Department for Work and Pensions have outlined four key funding streams they expect will pay for the radical welfare reform proposals due to be unveiled by Work and Pensions...
CIPFA president Diane Colley is to take early retirement from Rugby Borough Council, where she has been chief executive and chief financial officer for the past ten years.
Five mental health trusts could be awarded foundation status in April, even though the Department of Health has yet to finalise how they will operate the payment by results funding system.
The Treasury will make a fresh attempt to take the controversy out of the Private Finance Initiative next month, when it makes a deeply technical but potentially significant change to the terms of...
Police forces that volunteer to merge early will have some of their set-up costs met by central government, policing minister Hazel Blears said this week. But she stressed that forces themselves had...
The National Patient Safety Agency has no powers to investigate private hospitals and treatment centres, despite the increasing numbers of NHS patients they treat, a committee of MPs heard on January...
Focusing on social housing at the expense of shared equity or private homes will not be enough to meet housing need, housing and planning minister Yvette Cooper said this week.
Banks should be obliged to offer all council and housing association tenants more attractive basic accounts while ensuring they do not run up huge debts, MPs have been told.
The government is running out of time to deliver on its localism agenda and risking disaffection throughout local government, Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart has warned.
The government faces renewed pressure to improve security procedures in care homes in the wake of the furore over sex offenders found to be working in schools.
The revelation this week that more than 1 million pupils are being taught in poorly performing schools has underlined the need for robust local authority involvement, according to town hall leaders.
The Local Government Association has warned ministers of 'potentially substantial' hidden costs of proposals to combat antisocial behaviour, outlined in the prime minister's 'respect' action plan...
The Department for Education and Skills is putting 'unreasonable pressure' on councils in an effort to push through the controversial academy schools programme, a teaching union claims.
MPs have condemned as 'scandalous' the NHS's failure to tell three-quarters of terminally ill cancer patients that they are entitled to financial help to make their final days more comfortable.
Inadequate performance management systems and a lack of leadership from elected members are hobbling attempts to modernise the fire service, the Audit Commission has warned.
The trail being blazed by Local Area Agreements will be crucial to the contents of the forthcoming white paper on councils, the local government minister revealed this week.
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has admitted that her department 'mishandled' its instruction to strategic health authorities last year, telling them rapidly to reorganise the provision and...