Debt as a proportion of national income is to start falling, allowing Chancellor George Osborne to meet the fiscal target he set five years ago, he said today.
Rules governing council borrowing could be loosened in the next parliament as part of moves to improve the integration of public services, ministers have indicated.
When the Audit Commission was founded in 1983 its earliest staff members were excited by the opportunity to standardise and professionalise public sector audit, in a climate of independent scrutiny....
Recent reports of ineffective local government scrutiny reflect a hard if disappointing reality. But it’s important that councils invest in an enhanced scrutiny function – it will pay for...
Sir Roger Carr is Chairman of BAE Systems, a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group, Senior Advisor to KKR and a Visiting Fellow of Saïd Business School. Sir Roger was formerly...
Commissioners are to be sent in to run all the executive functions of Rotherham Borough Council following a damning report into the authority’s governance.
CIPFA members are being asked for their views on proposed changes to the institute’s governance structure, intended to reflect its increasingly global outlook.
Central government and local authorities do not tackle underperformance in academies and maintained schools consistently, according to the National Audit Office.
Academy trusts are not doing enough to mitigate the risk of conflict of interest between schools and sponsors, while some rules intended to protect public money are ‘largely meaningless’, according...
Sir Bob Kerslake has today launched the first stage of his inquiry into the future of Birmingham City Council that will examine the financial sustainability of the UK’s largest local authority and...
A ten-year £92m project to disperse Welsh Government offices around the country suffered from poor governance and weak cost estimates and might not have been value-for-money, auditors said today
Doctors’ leaders have urged Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to reconsider his decision to not offer an annual pay increase to those NHS staff in line for higher wages through job progression
The government has finally got around to publishing permanent secretaries' 2013-14 performance objectives. Unfortunately, instead of improving Whitehall accountability, they just add to the...
Some councils appear to be taking advantage of what they see as a loophole in the legislation regarding the Housing Revenue Account. But such attempts are not only morally wrong, they are legally...
The PASC has called for a new parliamentary commission on the future of the civil service. But a fresh inquiry will only be justified if it focuses on the nuts and bolts of how to make Whitehall...
Charity chief executives have been criticised for ‘fat-cat’ salaries in an age of austerity. But it’s down to trustees – not the Charity Commission – to determine...
Ministers have called on business leaders to serve as departmental non-executive directors and help make Whitehall more efficient. But more could be done to ensure that the right people are recruited...
‘Command and control’ is the default position for politicians and public service managers. But, as the tragic failures in Mid-Staffordshire show, it is a deeply flawed delivery model
Over-reliance on targets has been suggested as a factor in the Stafford Hospital scandal. But managers and front-line staff should never use the 'system' as an excuse for behaving in an...
