The largest growing area of fraud being detected or prevented by councils is business rates fraud, yet this represents only a fraction of the total, says CIPFA’s Marc McAuley.
Collaboration between the public sector and key providers such as construction groups can be used to create wider social value, says Bev Hurley of the Institute of Economic Development.
Debate about levels of council tax is doomed to go nowhere unless we consider what we’re willing to pay for services and how, says the Local Government Information Unit’s Jonathan Carr-West.
We will never get police funding right unless we answer the bigger questions, says president of the Police Superintendents’ Association Paul Griffiths.
Today marks one year since the Homelessness Reducation Act came into force. John Glenton from The Riverside Group housing association suggests how councils can meet their duties under this act....
Assuming that, one way or another, at some point in the not too distant future, Brexit happens, the impact on the shape of government and public services will be huge, say Colin and Carole Talbot....
Labour is right to identify outsourcing failures but its new policy risks creating more problems than it addresses, argues Institute for Government’s Tom Sasse.
Our economy will be enhanced by the success of apprenticeships, says the Lib Dem spokesperson for business, enterprise and industrial strategy Chris Fox.
Sharon Renouf and Virginia Cooper, partners at law firm Bevan Brittan, give some advice to local authorities with Interserve contracts on what to do now.
Local government services most likely to suffer from reductions in central government funding are mainly used by women, the director of the Women’s Budget Group Mary-Ann Stephenson says.
Public services will have to continue to cope until funding decisions are announced in the Spending Review, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ director Paul Johnson.
The Spring Statement gave a hint the chancellor may be rethinking fiscal objectives, says chief economist at the Institute for Government Gemma Tetlow.
Promises made in the Spring Statement hinge around avoiding a no deal Brexit, which seems fairly optimistic at this point, says New Philanthropy Capital chief executive Dan Corry.
As the date for the UK’s exit from the EU fast approaches, central government needs to give local authorities more long-term certainty, says CIPFA chief executive Rob Whiteman.
Celebrating the public sector’s counter fraud workforce can act as a deterrent and highlight best practice, CIPFA chief executive Rob Whiteman explains.
Central government has gone some way towards supporting the building of social rented homes but it needs to do much more, says Chartered Institute of Housing policy advisor John Perry.
