Winston Churchill is not one of my heroes. But in one area of public life he remains a beacon of sanity and good practice that puts present day coalition politicians to shame
The education secretary is right to aim for a national funding formula, where schools are directly funded by Whitehall. But getting there will be a huge problem, and the obstacles en route could...
Student fees affect so many people that opposition will grow as more and more understand the impact on them and their children, and the fact that there was a fairer and workable alternative available
Think about the implementation muddles the government has managed to generate around Child Benefit and multiply that by thirty and you get some idea of the train wreck on the horizon.
Getting more unemployed people into work is a key aim of the coalition. The Work Programme, combined with an overhaul of benefits, is the vehicle to make this happen
When the Commission on 2020 Public Services first met, one of our challenges was to wake people up to the looming crisis. Well, nobody is asleep any more
The coalition government today announced departmental business plans across Whitehall. These are supposed to be 'revolutionary', but the revolution is more spin than substance
Government cuts to capital spending will not mean the end of the PFI, PPPs or Local Improvement Finance Trusts. It's actually the opposite - without these vehicles, the future for the public sector...
In these uncertain times, councils can take a more hands-on approach to development and regeneration. Paul McGuinness of GVA Financial Consulting discusses the options
The health secretary has proposed using risk-sharing deals between drug companies and the NHS as the new basis for extending access to medicines. But this is not a sustainable system
David Cameron has made speedy and sweeping reforms to the public sector, but the spirit of Sir Humphrey Appleby lives on and is determined to thwart change
Necessity is the mother of invention. So, with revenue funding for local government cut by 26%, all sorts of things that were once unimaginable suddenly look eminently doable.
Michael Gove says that increased university fees will not deter applications from lower-income students. He must be the first Tory minister who believes that economic incentives have no effect on...
Somewhere between Sir Philip Green's Efficiency Review and the coalition's Comprehensive Spending Review, the much-derided reputation of public sector managers came in for yet another battering
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude today insisted that the government was not ideologically driven to scrap quangos. But he would be more persuasive if we had sight of a master plan
Wrong decisions on grant distribution in next month's finance settlement could throw councils into serious hardship with the ultimate financial survival of some coming into question
The real story about the New Schools Network is not financial but political. Government support for it is part of a war over the future of our school system.
Abolishing these agencies by 2012 is proving a messy business. Winding down costs are now put at £1.4 billion - roughly the same as the new regional growth fund.
An important lesson from the Spending Review is that the UK government sees the devolved administrations as subordinate, with limited functions and no wider role beyond the discharge of those...
