Business rates in Scotland are to be cut and brought into line with bills paid in England, Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell announced this week.
Northern Ireland's health service is set for major reorganisation, following the publication of its version of the Wanless review, conducted by Professor John Appleby, health economist at the King's...
It's difficult to see local government as the stuff of good theatre. But David Edgar's play uses infighting at a failing council to make some trenchant points about democracy. Joseph McHugh reports
The IRA's decision to end armed conflict finally gives Northern Ireland's citizens the chance of a normal life. But this means setting up democratic systems to replace political structures built...
It seems the 'Berlin Wall' dividing health and social care might finally be coming down, as ministers finalise a combined white paper. But will this lead to a merger of social services departments...
Business leaders have dismissed regional development agencies as irrelevant to the success of their companies, saying they do not understand their role or even why they exist.
Support for the Private Finance Initiative could be about to plummet if the Office for National Statistics gets its way. The statisticians plan to remove the scheme's big advantage: invisible public...
Many of Bexley council's school pupils were being educated in huts, with winds raging through broken windows. Then the chance of a £30m PFI refurbishment programme came along. Mike Ellsmore explains...
Civil servants this week urged the Cabinet Office to take swift action to correct problems with senior salaries that have distorted pay settlements for lower grade staff.
When does the UK's economic cycle start and end? Whenever the chancellor chooses, say his critics. That view is too cynical, argues Carl Emmerson but we could do with a more forward-looking...
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's review of the local government grant formula must take greater account of the extra cost of providing essential public services to far-flung rural...
For all the talk of a dramatic urban renaissance, population flight from Britain's city centres to suburbia and the countryside continues apace. Tony Travers explains what needs to be done to reverse...
Sir Gus O'Donnell is soon to take over the Whitehall hot seat newly vacated by Sir Andrew Turnbull. Will he follow in his reforming steps or take a different path? Mark Conrad finds out
Birmingham City Council has this week confirmed that it will offer emergency loans to uninsured residents whose properties were damaged by the tornado that tore through the city on July 28.
NHS managers will not know what hit them. Despite government assurances that there would be no significant reorganisation following the general election,
Cash raised by a private consortium to finance the extended Channel Tunnel rail link must be classed as government borrowing, the Office for National Statistics has insisted.
Schoolchildren from the poorest families are failing to match the attainment levels of their more affluent counterparts, the education secretary admitted this week.
The CBI is warning the government that 'short termism' in its procurement practices is preventing external service providers from bidding for contracts and undermining provision, Public Finance has...
Gordon Brown might mean what he says, but does he say what he means? The government's Alice in Wonderland approach to its Spending Review timings has a lot more to do with politics than economics
