Communities in the Thames Valley were bracing themselves for more flooding as operations continued to restore tap water supplies to 350,000 people in western England after thousands of hectares were...
When Gordon Brown first got his feet under the table at the Treasury way back in 1997 he promised to hit the ground running. Ten years on and his protégé Ed Balls has wasted no time in...
Sure Start children's centres came under fire again this week after senior MPs criticised them for not doing enough to help the most disadvantaged families.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week outlined plans to force benefit claimants into work axing some payments and asking people to take jobs outside their locality.
It's time to step up the fight against global warming. Local government has been leading the way but now it must help an increasingly concerned public to do its bit. The best way is through...
The delivery of flagship skills programmes remains on track despite the decision to split the former Department for Education and Skills in two, a senior education official claimed this week.
Councils and other public service leaders rushed to unpick the substance of the government's forthcoming legislative plans as the prime minister broke with tradition and set out much of his programme.
New Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has vowed to make 'localism and devolution' the watchwords of her tenure, she said in her first major speech since her appointment.
Public bodies are undermining Prime Minister Gordon Brown's efficiency drive by paying up to two-thirds above the market rate for equipment and services, a study of the sector's procurement habits...
The government's Sure Start project has failed to help deprived black and ethnic minority families, according to a report for the new Department for Children, Schools and Families.
It's been a challenging week for Team Gordon, as the new PM and his Cabinet strive to show who's in charge. Peter Riddell assesses what all the ministerial changes mean
One in ten people in Britain are shut out of the labour market for reasons that are individual, complex and highly local. The solution is not David Freud's mega-contracts, but drastic devolution of...
The new prime minister is an intellectual heavyweight, with strong views of his own on public policy. So where does this leave Britain's burgeoning think-tank industry? Peter Wilby reports on the...
Schools in England should be set a target of 80% of pupils achieving five good GCSEs by 2020 to improve social mobility rates, a minister claimed this week.
The number of pupils suspended from school rose by 4% in 2006 while the numbers of special needs children educated outside of mainstream education increased by 3%, government statistics show.
The Cabinet Office is preparing a submission to the Comprehensive Spending Review that would require Whitehall departments to work together to tackle social exclusion, ministers revealed this week.
The government is expected to introduce a narrow Bill giving council-funded care home residents recourse to the Human Rights Act, after three Law Lords ruled that the current legislation excludes...
'Grotesque failure' and 'total farce' were the more polite terms anti-poverty activist Bob Geldof used earlier this month to signal his disenchantment with the aid record of the world's richest...
The public sector faces a back-to-the-future scenario under this year's Comprehensive Spending Review, according to Robert Chote, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Proposals to restructure equality legislation need to be seen as an opportunity to tackle entrenched social inequalities, according to the Commission for Equality and Human Rights.
