Councillors are over-whelmingly white, male and middle-aged and they are putting off prospective candidates, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation warned this week.
New government measures to improve public health and save 300,000 lives in the next ten years will fail unless there is a 'massive shift' of funds to poor areas, the NHS Confederation said this week.
A campaign by the Local Government Association to overhaul the voting system for local elections has resulted in the creation of a commission to consider the issue.
Local authorities may have to boost efforts to combat stress and bullying at work after two councils this week paid damages of more than £150,000 to ex-employees.
Social Security Secretary Alistair Darling did little this week to dampen speculation that housing benefit faces abolition in a bid to cut down on massive levels of fraud.
The Treasury will give financial backing to any Private Finance Initiative scheme that ends up on the public sector balance sheet because of new accounting rules, Public Finance has learned.
Michael Bichard, permanent secretary to the Department for Education and Employment, has been created a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the Queen's Birthday Honours list.
Housing associations and community groups were this week invited to copy a savings and loans scheme established in Cambridge to improve low-income tenants' access to affordable loans.
The first takeover of one council-owned airport by another was confirmed this week when Manchester Airport successfully completed its purchase of Humberside International Airport.
The future of national pay bargaining for 1.6 million local government workers is up for grabs, following the launch of a three-month consultation by the Employers' Organisation.
A star rating system similar to that used by hotels and restaurants is likely to be applied to local authorities as part of Best Value inspections of their services.
The Post Office did not conceal its anger at the government's announcement this week that it is scrapping the £500m benefits card project as was widely suggested two weeks ago but denied by the...
The NHS is wasting up to £50m a year on private health care for mentally ill patients after closing nearly 10,000 psychiatric beds, health watchdog London Emergency Health has claimed. In a report...
The government has admitted that half this year's funding increase for education will be swallowed up by the teachers' pay rise, leaving much less than expected for other improvements.
The Department of Health is planning to introduce money-back financial incentives for health authorities across the country as part of its crackdown on fraud in the National Health Service.
Housing may be ignored by Labour as the government sets spending targets for a second term in office, prospective mayor of London Ken Livingstone warned this week.
Local authorities in the north, the Midlands and Scotland will now be expected to absorb 20,000 or more refugees from the Kosovo war, it was revealed this week.
