The chief executive of the Criminal Records Bureau defended its second hike in fees in nine months this week, claiming the 17% increase would more accurately reflect the costs of the service.
Local authorities, refugee groups and social workers have condemned controversial plans put forward by the government in this year's Queen's Speech to take the children of failed asylum seekers into...
Chancellor Gordon Brown this week set in motion the roll-out of regional wage settlements across the public services but insisted that changes must be made within existing national pay frameworks.
The government will not impose a single capping threshold on local authorities whose council tax increases are deemed to be excessive, Public Finance has learned, but councils will be expected to...
The Criminal Records Bureau is poised to increase its fees again, just five months after a 100% hike in its charges for criminal checks, Public Finance has learnt.
The leader of Whitehall's largest union has criticised the public sector efficiency review being conducted by Peter Gershon after the mandarin admitted he would not scrutinise public-private...
The Scottish Executive is planning to improve the scrutiny of its budget by providing a performance report to allow MSPs to assess whether targets are being met.
Honours committees are out of step with modern society and dominated by an elderly, white male elite, according to government policy papers released by an influential committee of MPs.
London and the West Midlands could each gain an extra £150m over three years under plans to let councils keep some of the business rates raised locally, new Treasury figures show.
The proportion of funding raised through council tax should be decreased and other regimes such as local income tax considered to run alongside it, CIPFA said this week.
District councils cried foul and other local authorities renewed threats of council tax rises and service cuts in spite of the proposed 4.7% increase in revenue support grant announced by the...
The spending of the European Union is still plagued with errors, according to the European Court of Auditors, which this week refused to give unqualified endorsement of the 2002 accounts.
MPs on the influential Commons' Public Accounts Committee will question Inland Revenue chair Sir Nick Montagu in early December over the National Audit Office's refusal to sign off the Revenue's 2002...
The question of who is going to pick up the estimated £5m £6m costs of policing US President Bush's state visit remained unresolved this week as the Metropolitan Police Authority called for...
Northern Ireland's auditor general, John Dowdall, has issued a disclaimer on the Department for Social Development's 2002/03 accounts effectively refusing to sign them off.
MPs have slammed the national IT programme for magistrates' courts as one of the worst examples of a Private Finance Initiative project they have ever seen, describing the procurement as 'disastrous...
New shadow local government secretary David Curry has vowed to take the fight for council freedoms and flexibilities to the Labour government following his surprise appointment as one of the...
Providers of adult mental health services in England will have only £56m to develop their services in the current financial year, according to the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.
Teachers in England and Wales are to receive an inflation-only, multi-year pay increase for the first time as the government moves to head off a repeat of the schools funding crisis that saw mass...
Councils are threatening to cut services in the expectation of receiving an average 4.9% grant increase when the provisional finance settlement is announced next week.
Westminster council has called on Chancellor Gordon Brown to intervene in its dispute with the Office for National Statistics after its watchdog cast doubt on the 2001 Census results.
Local authorities are demanding a guarantee from Charles Clarke that the promised 4% funding increase for schools next year will not starve other vital services of cash.
Stronger and more formal links between local public service providers are unlikely to materialise unless Whitehall stands by its commitment to relax its hold over local government, a London council...
