The government is launching a major push to make public bodies share services such as finance and human resources amid concerns that they are less efficient than their private sector counterparts.
No agreement emerged from the first meeting aimed at resolving the dispute between employers, unions and the government over the Local Government Pension Scheme.
The proposed integration of CIPFA and the ICAEW fell by the tiniest of margins last week. Steve Freer examines what we can all learn from the experience
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Des Browne has the unenviable task of matching public expenditure to delivery. In his first major interview, he tells Joseph McHugh how he is tackling the brief
Councils could be forced to delve into billions of pounds of vital cash reserves following a tough 2006/07 finance settlement, ministers have warned town hall officials.
Further demanding targets for efficiency savings beyond the Gershon programme will be at the heart of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review, the Cabinet minister masterminding it has told Public...
Partnerships between public sector organisations risk wasting money unless there is a clear sense of what they are hoping to achieve and who is in charge, the Audit Commission warned this week.
Sixty-six MPs have signed a parliamentary motion urging Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to extend last week's surprise deal on unfunded public sector pensions to local government.
Most of the Revenue & Customs department's 100,000 staff are to receive pay rises of 3%-4% each year until 2008 under a new deal that will eradicate large wage disparities.
Never one to shrink from a challenge, David Blunkett has taken the incapacity benefit bit between his teeth. Judy Hirst reports on the work and pensions secretary's controversial measures to get...
Government departments could still be forced to reduce entitlements for new public sector staff to meet its £13bn savings target across the sector despite this week's surprise deal on the pension...
Whitehall departments are teaming up with government agencies and the private sector to launch a huge data-matching exercise designed to identify benefit fraudsters, tax cheats and absent parents.
For years, people have been asking why central government is not subject to the same rigorous performance assessments as the rest of the public sector. Well, now Whitehall's turn has come
Efforts to convince public sector organisations to contract more with the voluntary sector are to be stepped up after a study showed continuing widespread ignorance of the benefits of doing so.
The system for awarding benefits to sick and disabled people is 'crackers', according to Work and Pensions Secretary David Blunkett, because it is too complicated and wide open to error and fraud.
A study saying that England's pensions crisis has been overstated makes the 'unrealistic' assumption that thousands of pensioners would sell their homes for retirement income, experts have claimed.
Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell this week backed calls for a civil service Act to enshrine Whitehall's independence, but warned that his legislative preferences could be thwarted by political...
The public sector could employ an additional 5,700 doctors, 12,800 nurses or 9,100 police officers annually with the money it loses through two forms of benefit fraud.
Local government employers have overstated the 'unaffordability' of the status quo in the local government pension scheme by as much as £95m a year, a study commissioned by the Office of the Deputy...
Jobcentres are not 'punching their weight' and the staff cuts planned under the Gershon efficiency agenda could stymie efforts to get people off benefits and into work, an influential think-tank has...
The council tax issue is not going to go away, says Tony Travers. The government might have postponed the revaluation but this won't stop the annual rises and accompanying protests. It's time to take...
Public service unions are vowing to step up their opposition to the government's controversial reform programme after bloodying ministers' noses over pensions and the NHS at the Labour Party...
