Not for Scotland the path well trodden. While Westminster endorses market-based public service reforms, the Scottish Executive is ploughing its own furrow on education, health and immigration. Iain...
The government hates it and wants to avoid it at all costs. But there's no getting away from local party politics in a representative democracy, argue George Jones and John Stewart. It needs to be...
City-regions offer a new take on local democracy, holding out the idea of governance that reflects the urban economic realities. But these will only work if the hinterland is also involved in...
Social mobility has stalled, despite the government's best efforts to raise the aspirations of children from working-class homes. Effective reform of local services will be crucial to turning this...
Everyone agrees that the council tax is regressive but there's less consensus on the solution. The interim Lyons report plumped for reforming the benefit system and not the bands. But both are...
The government needs to put its house in order over how it approaches its much-publicised efficiency drive or it may find that the result is to make the public sector even less effective than it was...
& is a problem halved. But not when public bodies can't agree on the best ways to collaborate. Judy Hirst explains why sharing services is so hard to do
Labour's plans for more housing depend on developers paying for the accompanying infrastructure with a new planning gain supplement. But there is opposition to this tax on building, as Mark Smulian...
When the National Audit Office investigated Whitehall's efficiency savings it found that they weren't all they seemed. Some were aspirational, some weren't efficient and others couldn't be proved....
The Private Finance Initiative has never been a free lunch for the NHS. Now even the Treasury seems to be losing its appetite for large PFI hospital schemes. Noel Plumridge explains why
Critics of local government's structure need look no further than Durham to support their case against two-tier councils. Would a unitary approach across England produce less confusion, while...
The government's white paper on health has outlined how it proposes to tackle inequalities of care, but fudges some crucial issues over funding and provision, which may undermine its effectiveness
The introduction of payment by results has put large capital building programmes under the spotlight, as it becomes clear that the new finance system will struggle to pay for long-term PFI...
As struggling NHS trusts face a year of even more cost pressures, targets, efficiency savings and payment by results, they will have to use every wile they can to attract patients. Seamus Ward...
Local government minister and political wunderkind David Miliband has been tipped as a potential Labour prime minister. Vivienne Russell meets a minister who is very much on the move
This week's health and social care white paper promises joint working and preventive care in the community. But NHS deficits and social service cutbacks mean the trends are pointing the other way....
Conservative Party pledges to alter the proportion of economic wealth allotted to the public sector may prove to be rather similar to what Chancellor Gordon Brown has announced in his Pre-Budget...
Voluntary organisations can reach parts that monolithic public services can't even get close to. And the government is waking up to their importance in areas such as employment services and welfare...
The tougher CPA is here and there is no hiding place. One of the weak spots is external funding, with many councils displaying a frightening lack of control over and knowledge of grant bids. Guy...
First it was in, then it was out, now it's 'in-sourced'. Croydon council believes it has found the best way to run its benefits service. Nathan Elvery explains
Not so long ago, light rail or tram schemes were the favourite solutions to transport problems in English cities. But one by one the planned projects have collapsed and Transport Secretary Alistair...
Tory leader David Cameron has hit the ground running, ditching old party certainties for the centre ground. But how much substance is there? Philip Johnston has his doubts
Forget the current headlines about schools, one of their biggest difficulties is attracting a head teacher. Phil Revell reports on a recruitment crisis that is threatening the reforms
Over a million new homes are projected for the over-crowded Southeast. A planning and design abomination or a sensible way to provide pleasant, affordable homes for ordinary people? Will Hatchett...
Once again there is a conflict between the government's policy intentions and the law. This time it affects one of the main planks of its local reforms: Local Area Agreements. But there is solution
