Chancellor Gordon Brown's bid to encourage the private and voluntary sectors to invest up to £1bn in deprived areas will be one of the key planks of his pre-Budget report on November 8.
Local Government Association chair Sir Jeremy Beecham has launched a renewed defence of the public service ethos and the value of 'vigorous local democracy'.
The London Borough of Hackney is in the throes of another financial crisis after the borough treasurer issued a formal warning that the authority is facing a massive budget deficit.
The chair of the body set up to examine how contracts are awarded under Best Value has reassured local authorities they will not have new regulations forced on them.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone has broken public sector pay barriers by offering up to £2m over four years to lure 'the best in the world' to London's top transport job.
Ministerial interference in next year's finance settlement is threatening to divide local government, with London boroughs accusing the government of trying to cheat them out of £49m to placate its...
A second-term Labour government would expand the role of regional development agencies and boost their funding to encourage investment and kick-start regeneration in deprived areas.
Local authorities are being urged to press ahead with setting up arm's-length housing management companies 18 months before they will be allowed to spend any extra money on their stock.
Child support services are close to collapse in the Vale of Glamorgan, according to a report on the council's social services described by one Whitehall official as 'the most damning we have produced...
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is being strongly tipped in Whitehall for the ill-fated post of 'Cabinet enforcer' if Tony Blair wins a second term in government.
Housing association rents should not be kept artificially high so that registered social landlords can fund activities linked to neighbourhood renewal, housing minister Nick Raynsford warned this...
Local authorities are gearing up for annual spending spats with schools after the government backed down on its threat for direct education funding in this week's finance green paper.
The Commons' environment committee has criticised the government's decision to go ahead with its controversial plan to part-privatise the National Air Traffic Services before the Swanwick control...
Local authorities have voiced fears that next week's Finance green paper will be nothing more than a damp squib with vague proposals designed to smooth tensions until after the General Election.
A £1.3m government-funded research programme that will play a key role in deciding how Britain's local authorities meet new tough recycling targets over the next five years has been given away to...
The government's hospital building programme is ill-considered and could create expensive white elephants, a King's Fund report said this week, in yet another condemnation of Private Finance...
Public, private and voluntary organisations are to work with 345 schools on out-of-hours educational projects for which funding was announced this week.
London's poorest areas could lose millions of pounds in vital regeneration funding under a new deprivation index, local authorities in the capital have warned.
Civil service targets to increase the numbers of ethnic minority staff in Whitehall are unrealistic, inaccurate and disappointing, the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality has warned.
