MAX WIND-COWIE | The six largest audit quangos cost the UK taxpayer £1bn a year to run and the biggest beast in this motley crew is the Audit Commission
CONOR RYAN | Schools Secretary Ed Balls raised eyebrows at the weekend with his Sunday Times interview where he offered up £2 billion in savings from his departmental budget. Meanwhile, a new CBI...
Sir Roger Singleton’s comparatively new Independent Safeguarding Authority has learned the hard way, during the past few weeks, that apart from walking barefoot
MELISSA BENN | As the party conference season grinds into action, the Liberal Democrats will be wondering how to turn the electorate’s respect into hard votes
MIKE THATCHER | Truth and politics are not easy bedfellows. But misleading the public, whether actively or by omission, is a dangerous tactic for any politician
HEATHER WAKEFIELD | We may never know if Gordon Brown’s fondness for Dear Prudence stemmed from a love of the Beatles’ 1968 vintage White Album track, but he was in the Fab Four’s home town yesterday...
MIKE BREWER | The Centre for Social Justice have published a report in association with Oliver Wyman on how to reform the benefits and tax credits system, with the aim of reducing the number of...
ROBERT CHOTE | There is a lot we do not yet know about how Labour and the Conservatives would go about repairing Britain's battered public finances over the next few years. But last week's speeches...
ROD ALDRIDGE | As the sponsor of two academies, I am very much in favour of Schools’ Secretary Ed Balls’ announcement last week bringing the end of the £2m entry fee for future academy sponsorships
MELISSA BENN | In his last PF blog, Conor Ryan suggests that union opposition to academies is based largely on uncertainty about performance; oh, and just a smidgen of carping self interest and...
ALAN DOWNEY | I think the basic premise of the Institute of Directors/Taxpayers Alliance report, How to save £50bn, is virtually impossible to argue with
PETER HETHERINGTON | Essex leader Lord Hanningfield’s call for the power to set local benefits is just one of the radical ideas local government is throwing up in the recession
JUDY HIRST | In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything. So the news that Britain might be out of recession should have provided a favourable backdrop for the chancellor’s Callaghan lecture...
