Teaching unions this week laid the blame for the latest increase in the number of failing schools squarely with funding shortages and the school inspectorate's 'shifting goalposts'.
Public Accounts Committee chair Edward Leigh has castigated the Strategic Rail Authority for a 'catalogue of blunders' in its attempts to introduce new modern trains to the network.
Millions of pounds are being poured into rundown estates in northern England as ministers deny claims that too much housing investment is concentrated in the South.
Scottish local authority leaders this week defended a proposal that councillors should receive a basic annual salary of £25,000 about half the amount paid to members of the Scottish Parliament.
The government's push to implement the controversial foundation hospitals plan was dealt an unexpected blow this week with the news that many of the leading trusts will not be given the status until...
Student debt in England and Wales could top £8.5bn a year following the government's narrow Commons victory on top-up fees, preventing graduates from seeking public sector jobs, say critics.
The UK is not a 'soft touch' for asylum seekers, but there are systematic 'weaknesses' in government policy that need rectifying to restore public confidence in the system, MPs have reported.
Storm clouds were gathering over local government pay this week, with unions set to lodge a 4% pay claim, despite warnings that employers are determined to keep to the Treasury's inflation-only limit...
The government has ruled out any immediate changes to the Freedom of Information Act, but has committed itself to introducing a draft Civil Service Bill later this year.
The Audit Commission in Wales is taking a legal dispute with Cardiff County Council to the High Court after the authority rejected claims that more than £2.5m in payments to leading officers and...
Normal political debate has pretty much been forgotten amid the tumult of the Hutton Inquiry report and the vote over university top-up tuition fees, but in recent days senior Labour figures have...
Big government spending departments are being urged to remove unnecessary bureaucracy and confusion between agencies to ensure that cash for the public services reaches the front line.
Government efforts to promote the Private Finance Initiative in housing have received a boost after 19 local authorities bid to join the third round of the programme.
Anna Klonowski, the director of finance responsible for stabilising the troubled London Borough of Hackney's budget problems, has been head-hunted to do a similar job at North East Lincolnshire...
London motorists who obstruct traffic flows by blocking box junctions or disregarding one-way signs will have to hand over £100 fines to local authorities from April.
Local authority representatives have welcomed the government's decision to abandon controversial proposals to withhold housing benefit from antisocial tenants after a consultation exercise revealed...
The health service's ambitious information technology programme took a step forward this week with the award of the final electronic care records contract and a new pricing agreement that could save...
The civil service code governing the conduct of Whitehall's top officials must be sharpened up in the wake of the Hutton Inquiry, according to the senior civil servants' union.
Thirty years of government grants to disadvantaged areas of England have had 'little real impact' on their economic performance, according to senior backbench MPs.
Any moves to amend the current selection process for government communications officers and other civil servants would be a step backwards, the FDA union warned this week.
