Do Whitehall figures understate the socioeconomic impact of immigration? More precise local-level monitoring and checks on outward migration will give an answer, the agencies involved say
Local government and health unions have edged closer to pay deals that would breach the Treasury's 2% limit but this week's illegal strikes by prison officers have highlighted the public sector's...
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...
Business leaders this week urged the government not to back away from the privatisation of jobseeker services, after the welfare reform minister told Public Finance that plans for regional...
The public purse could make significant savings if the government planned better how it disposes of its computers, fax machines and telephones, auditors said this week.
Britain's 'stunningly complex' benefits system has fuelled the rising payment error rates that this week led auditors to qualify the Department for Work and Pensions' accounts for the eighteenth...
Gordon Brown's new ministerial team has ditched plans to create 'mega-contractors' that would enjoy lucrative regional monopolies in the forthcoming privatisation of jobseeker programmes.
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...
Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week outlined plans to force benefit claimants into work axing some payments and asking people to take jobs outside their locality.
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...
The government's Health and Safety Executive is set to relocate hundreds of posts from London to Merseyside as part of a Whitehall plan to cut civil service numbers and costs, Public Finance can...
Opponents of Britain's Private Finance Initiative ignore one rather vital fact it works. Not only does it do what it's meant to do, it does it so well that other countries are queuing up to learn...
It's been a challenging week for Team Gordon, as the new PM and his Cabinet strive to show who's in charge. Peter Riddell assesses what all the ministerial changes mean
Recent changes at the top of government present a golden opportunity for climate change to be pushed up the political agenda, a leading environmentalist said this week.
Public bodies must slash the time it takes to provide services if the government is to become more responsive to citizens' needs, a minister admitted this week.
One in ten people in Britain are shut out of the labour market for reasons that are individual, complex and highly local. The solution is not David Freud's mega-contracts, but drastic devolution of...
The new prime minister is an intellectual heavyweight, with strong views of his own on public policy. So where does this leave Britain's burgeoning think-tank industry? Peter Wilby reports on the...
