Should citizens have a direct say in the way councils spend their money? George Jones and John Stewart explore the pros and cons of participatory budgeting an idea whose time might have come
Civil servants have called on the government to consider in-house bids for future IT projects after spiralling costs forced the suspension of an outsourced offender monitoring system.
New Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain has thrown down the gauntlet in a green paper designed to get the long-term unemployed into jobs. But, as Mark Conrad reports, there are some tricky battles...
The Local Government Employers organisation has issued an urgent notice warning councils to resume meaningful negotiations with unions or risk expensive litigation over a potential £5bn gender pay...
The Ministry of Defence will be allocated an additional £7.7bn for the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review but must also cut 5% of its overheads each year.
First Minister Alex Salmond appears set for a clash with Whitehall over the Scottish National Party's plans to issue bonds as an alternative to public-private partnerships.
Housing is back at the top of the political agenda, with a green paper promising to solve the affordable housing crisis. But how is the new prime minister going to square a return to social rented...
Voluntary sector involvement in public service delivery is blighted by poor commissioning and perceived conflicts with European Union competition rules, the Audit Commission has found.
The Office for National Statistics has hit back at criticisms from MPs that its plans to relocate staff to South Wales threaten the quality of key economic data such as inflation figures.
Twelve proposals for revitalising one of the government's low-cost home ownership schemes have reached the final stages of a competition set up by Gordon Brown.
In the early days of New Labour, the Private Finance Initiative was seen as the only game in town for funding major public sector projects, but the Metronet crisis could mean the game is up, writes...
An intense focus on outcomes is essential if the public sector is to deliver real value, says Geoffrey Filkin. Here he argues that government can achieve better performance without committing extra...
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...
Whitehall-set public service targets are to be slashed and councils given greater scope to boost regional economies, the Treasury said this week indications that the new government may be putting...
Pensioner poverty rates are unlikely to decline, despite government plans to invest billions in re-linking state payments to earnings, financial experts warned this week.
The chief medical officer for England and Wales, Sir Liam Donaldson, has used his annual report to call for 'raided' public health funds to be restored.
Scottish ministers are to demand that unspent cash should be fully available to the Executive in the next budget round and not retained by the Treasury in London.
A new level of ambition is needed if communities are to guarantee their viability in the low-carbon decades ahead. That's why we must find the next Chamberlains, Livingstones and Schwarzeneggers
Councils face mounting costs in meeting their 'green' obligations. There's much they can do to cut these but they still need more resources, argues Chris Wilson
Now that politicians have promoted sustainability from token policy pledge to manifesto must-have, Public Finance 's latest round table posed the question of how local authorities can save the...
