Cameron is a professional PR man and his ear is well tuned. So when he says 'enemy', as in public officials are the 'enemies of enterprise', he is well aware of the echoes of his political patron...
The danger in the message from Wolf's report is that it will tilt the education system so far away from pre-16 vocational or practical education that it not only creates a large new cohort of truants...
Too many local authorities and their local public sector partners appear to be seeing grants to community and voluntary groups as easy targets for their cutting. Such views are extraordinarily short...
Payment by results looks set to revolutionise criminal justice policy. But ministers must be prepared to follow the logic of PBR to its radical policy conclusions if this exciting scheme is really to...
Observers of the national inspection regimes for residential and care home providers will have watched the old purpose-built, local authority arm's length units change beyond recognition
As the ambitious Welfare Reform Bill approaches its second reading in the House of Commons, the polarised debate ignited by its weak points risks distracting attention from some of the key benefits
We know that when an IT system fails, it can fail monumentally. £16bn is spent every year on government IT. That is larger than the whole transport budget. It is time we found a solution.
Ian Mulheirn says that those who are cautious about the use of market forces in public services are 'flat-earthers'. Can I return the friendly insult by asking him to take off his rose-tinted glasses?
Yesterday the Resolution Foundation launched a wide-ranging investigation into the pressures facing low-to-middle earners. Think 'the squeezed middle' and 'alarm clock Britain'.
The coalition government has embraced much of New Labour's approach to public service reform but ditched the targets and direction that made its policies work
Ireland's election result is no less groundbreaking for having been largely predictable. But essentially the new government will preside over a continuity of the austerity that began under Fianna...
Dark clouds are gathering around the Big Society. The idea is a sound one, but despite Cameron's passion his lack of planning is raising the prospect of its death-knell.
Most of political Scotland expects the Scottish National Party to lose the Holyrood elections in May so, it might surprise you to learn that Westminster is about to pass a Bill that will involve the...
Market-based reform works to raise the quality and lower the cost of public services. The danger is that unless the government can fund sufficient capacity for the market to work, the reforms risk...
The current work of ministers and civil servants in Whitehall has the potential to radically transform the economic and democratic fortunes of towns and cities all over the country.
The public sector's last experience of being a market place was in the 1980s through compulsory competitive tendering. Does anyone who remembers CCT recognise Cameron's description?
International aid is a priority for the new government, but spending must be effectively scrutinised. Improving public financial management is a vital part of this process
Are you, or have you ever been, a deficit denier? The term is being bandied about with near-McCarthyite fervour, as debate hots up in anticipation of the Budget
