The Audit Commission this week unveiled a new, less damning scoring system for its Best Value inspections regime after a plethora of complaints from councils and a two-month consultation exercise.
Scotland's controller of audit has rounded on Scottish Borders Council for serious financial management weaknesses which led to a £3.9m overspend in education services.
As the prime minister embarks on his mission to change the world, it seems appropriate that his junior colleagues are left with the more mundane task of reconstructing Britain.
A £300m, two-year cash injection that will be paid directly to local authorities will go some way to relieving bed blocking, the Local Government Association said this week.
Milton Keynes Council and Northamptonshire County Council were this week pushing the boundaries of strategic partnerships after agreeing a short-list of private companies to merge their support...
Elderly people in Northern Ireland are in despair at the loss of home help services as the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety tries to cope with a £120m deficit, claims Unison,...
The future of the Public Private Partnership Programme, local government's advisory agency, was thrown into doubt this week with the departure of its chief executive.
Ministers should take account of local factors before dismissing chief executives of failing NHS trusts, according to a public sector management expert.
Local Government Secretary Stephen Byers' promise to conduct a review of the Best Value regime, made at this week's Labour Party conference in Brighton, will be music to the ears of many of those who...
Union leaders warned this week that ministers had 'no mandate' to privatise the public services and urged the government to give up its 'disastrous' experiment with the private sector.
Public-private partnerships suffered a new blow this week when the London Borough of Brent rejected a multimillion pound Private Finance Initiative education project because it did not provide value...
Brighton's 'Bingate' crisis, which led to the collapse of a multimillion pound private sector deal in the summer, is threatening to escalate again amid fears that the council cannot afford the cost...
The government successfully defused the expected row over privatisation at the annual Labour Party conference in Brighton this week with the launch of a three-month review of Best Value in local...
The new arrangements were introduced on October 1, categorising elderly patients requiring long-term nursing care into three funding categories £35, £70 and £110 per week following an assessment...
NHS chiefs have called on doctors to vaccinate more than 5.8 million pensioners against flu to try to ease the burden on the health service this winter.