Tax fraud costs the public purse around ten times as much as benefit fraud. So why does the government employ three times as many people to tackle the latter, asks TaxWatch’s George Turner.
Issues with external audit are not confined to local government – the NHS system is also not working, says Emma Knowles, director of policy and research at the Healthcare Financial Management...
Sedgemoor District Council leader Duncan McGinty makes the case for a two-unitary solution to Somerset’s upcoming reorganisation of local government structures.
The government’s decision to revoke the £95,000 exit payment cap is likely to cause work for public sector bodies in a number of areas, according to Sarah Lamont, employment lawyer at law firm Bevan...
Closer working between external and internal auditors can help achieve better value for money, according to CIPFA advisers Diana Melville and Ellen Millington.
Help is at hand for local authorities looking to increase their anti-fraud capabilities, says Heidi Loren de Sousa, manager of CIPFA's Counter Fraud Apprenticeship programme.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak needs to think very carefully about the potentially damaging consequences of scrapping council tax and replacing it with a new national property tax, says Jessica Studdert...
A report showing healthy profits for independent providers of children’s residential care while councils struggle underlines the need for reform, says Judith Blake chair of the Local Government...
Richard Lloyd-Bithell, senior technical manager at CIPFA, runs through the new proposals for the Prudential Code in response to increased local authority investment in commercial property.
The UK’s death toll from Covid-19 this week reached 100,000. The grim milestone is a legacy of underfunding for health and care services, says Anita Charlesworth, director of research and REAL Centre...
Aligning tax rates between employees and the self-employed would reduce inequity while encouraging entrepreneurial risk-taking, says Stuart Adam, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal...
David Fothergill, leader of Somerset County Council – currently in reorganisation talks with central government - makes the economic case for creating a unitary authority.
The cyber attack on the London Borough of Hackney will divert resources that could be better spent on the authority’s Covid-19 response for months to come, says director of finance and resources Ian...
Covid-19 has hastened reforms to NHS funding, but governance risks exist in areas of the country lacking mature relationships between health partners and councils, says Patrick Garratt, senior policy...
Covid-19 could mean big changes to the future of office working, presenting public bodies with opportunities to reduce costs and raise income, says John Burgess.
Increased funding for the NHS and Department of Health & Social Care is welcome, but is not enough to cover the impact of Covid-19 or transformation plans, explains NHS Providers policy adviser...
November's Spending Review might not have marked a return to full-blooded austerity, but unprotected service areas are facing a financial squeeze after next year, writes IFS economist Ben ...
Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit, examines the potential financial impacts for councils of the post-Brexit agreement between the UK and European Union.
Most people will be glad to see the back of 2020. However, those in LGPS circles will find it hard to fully erase its memory as announcements made during the year will affect resources into 2021 and...
