Local authorities breathed a sigh of relief this week as the government endorsed CIPFA's Best Value Accounting Code, accepting the argument that self-regulation is preferable to secondary legislation...
The introduction of directly elected city-region mayors whose responsibilities would cover a much wider territory than previously proposed is being considered by the government.
Government warnings to local authorities to keep down council tax rises may have been heeded. Early forecasts, based on counties' figures, suggest bills will rise by about 6% on average in line...
For the ninth year running, the National Audit Office has refused to approve the accounts of the Lord Chancellor's Department after finding insufficient evidence that the expenditure of £633m in...
Relatives of those who died in the Paddington train crash have criticised the 'U-turn' by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in allowing the rail operating company Railtrack to retain much of its...
PricewaterhouseCoopers last week announced its intention to split its business operations into at least two divisions, recognising the complaints of conflicts of interest in the Big Five firms.
Social landlords are stepping up pressure on the government to improve the way councils pay housing benefit, ahead of any long-term changes to the benefits system.
Figures released this week by Customs and Excise show that the flight of serious punters to low-tax offshore betting operations is beginning to bite into government revenues.
The government is introducing IT project controls in an effort to avoid further crises with computer systems, following the problems at the Passport Agency and the Immigration and Nationality...
Auditors could be forced into making political decisions for which they are ill-equipped under the new Best Value regime, a House of Commons committee was told this week.
New research shows that an 'alarmingly high number' of GPs are not connected to the Internet and those who are, have strong concerns about illegal access to clinical information.
The government was this week accused of being the country's most wasteful landlord as new figures show that almost one in five public sector properties is empty.
The National Assembly for Wales has announced an extra £2m for children's services following a damning report that traced two decades of child abuse in local authority homes.
The new editor of Public Finance is to be Mike Thatcher, who has held the position of deputy editor since September 1998. He takes over on February 28 from Victor Smart who is to edit the leading...
Rhodri Morgan, the new First Secretary of the National Assembly for Wales, is already facing pressure from nationalists to secure European funding and stem central government interference.
The government has been forced radically to revise its attempts to regenerate the regions after a damning report from its own Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) criticised Labour's approach as...
A growing number of senior industrialists may be attracted to top jobs in the civil service following the appointment of Peter Gershon to head the new Office of Government Commerce (OGC).
The head of the powerful Public Accounts Committee of MPs has slammed health authorities and trusts for not taking seriously the threat of infections picked up by patients in hospitals.
Best Value could unleash market testing of local authorities' financial services on a much greater scale than Compulsory Competitive Tendering achieved.
Chris Woodhead, the chief inspector for schools, has warned that performance-related pay will have little real impact on teachers' earnings, because one in ten head teachers are incapable of...
