New Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has chosen a local government expert to lead the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and promoted a specialist to manage the Northern Ireland Office.
As the Conservatives gear up for their Blackpool conference next week, they face their most important leadership contest in more than 40 years. Philip Johnston analyses the policies behind the beauty...
The NHS needs finance skills more than ever if it is to transform itself into a modern, forward-planning organisation while struggling with major structural upheavals, growing deficits and the need...
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...
The inquiry into local government funding has been widened, but the same questions remain, namely those of devolution, fairness, and how to tackle the public's understanding of the way councils work
The Commission for Social Care Inspection has condemned the government's plans to move its children's services remit to an enlarged Ofsted as 'incoherent', 'illogical' and 'dangerous'.
More than 10% of the civil service could be outsourced to private or voluntary organisations under controversial reforms to job seekers' services being considered by the Department for Work and...
The London bombings are putting long-established 'community cohesion' policies to the test and threatening to hijack them in the name of a quick fix for terrorism.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber has challenged the government to make good its pledge to improve employment terms and conditions for hundreds of thousands of public sector agency staff.
The Prudential Code has not led to councils abandoning leasing for loans as predicted, but finance managers say it has freed them to borrow for major projects that will save money in the long term
As the TUC and government square up for their annual seaside contest, ministers face a movement riven with divisions and agonising about its future. Judy Hirst predicts tough times ahead for public...
Public sector trades unions held pre-emptive talks this week over the thorny issue of pensions amid growing fears that they could fail to agree reform principles with ministers in advance of more...
Sixty years of the welfare state have failed to ensure that those in most need of public services have adequate access to them, leading to 'wide and persisting inequality', research has found.
It seems the 'Berlin Wall' dividing health and social care might finally be coming down, as ministers finalise a combined white paper. But will this lead to a merger of social services departments...
Britain still dumps most of its rubbish in landfill sites, instead of recycling it. But tough new European Union regulations are set to change all that. David Meilton reports on how councils are...
Finally, a hospital waiting time target that should genuinely help patients. But can the tough new plan to cut the time from GP referral to treatment to 18 weeks be achieved? Anthony Harrison and...
The new licensing regime has been condemned as a 'shambles' by industry representatives as the government's own estimates suggest that at least 30% of businesses will miss the August 6 deadline.
The joint government/trade union body the Public Services Forum has swung into action to set up two panels to assess problematic sickness absence and diversity issues.
Civil servants this week urged the Cabinet Office to take swift action to correct problems with senior salaries that have distorted pay settlements for lower grade staff.
When does the UK's economic cycle start and end? Whenever the chancellor chooses, say his critics. That view is too cynical, argues Carl Emmerson but we could do with a more forward-looking...
