Bureaucrat bashing is, for many, an attractive and enjoyable blood sport. It is built into the DNA of certain parts of Fleet Street, providing easy targets as the hapless bureaucrats have no real...
Following the referendum result, Welsh politicians have called for the abolition of the Wales Office. But this isn't necessary - it's more important to decide what role the Office should have
When various factors combined unexpectedly to hold up rubbish collections early this year, councils were pilloried. But such risks should be prepared for
Most members of the local government finance community have been expecting and planning for big cuts for a couple of years, even if they mentally labelled the changes 'Operation Hope Not' ('Honey, I...
Poor Bob Neill. It must be hard enough being local government minister without being subject to attacks that he is a centrist disguised as a localist ('Neil hits back at criticisms of Localism Bill...
The coalition government has reversed the progress made by New Labour on evidence-based policy. Both data and analytical capacity are being stripped away from Whitehall
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...
