A new report from the National Audit Office examines the British governments attempts to reorganise “arms-length bodies” in the UK. One of the central conclusions is that the reorganisation is dragging many of the functions of these bodies back to the ‘centre’ and closer to political control – in other words a big shift from […]

Watch out for the word “implementation” in 2012. It’s the new in-word in Whitehall.

Today (20 Jan 2012) the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) published a scathing attack on the re-organisation at the top of the Civil Service that took place over Christmas.

1st Posted on Huffington Post (UK): 9/1/12 18:43 GMT Does the SNP really want a free, democratic, Scotland? If so they are everything they can to ensure it may, just, become independent but is unlikely to be a genuine democracy.

Tonight (Thursday 22) and tomorrow the BBC Radio 4 PM programme will carry items by reporter Andrew Bomford about how greater Manchester has fared over the past year in the face of a sluggish economy and large public spending cuts. It’s based on a report we wrote for them on the impact of the cuts […]

I have been predicting for some time that some of the big structural changes to public services are likely to destabilise the financial systems in health, education and local government. So it comes as no surprise that tens of millions of pounds have been ‘accidentally’ awarded to new Academy Schools. 

Inequality across the OECD is rising, including in Britain, even before the impact of the current crisis has even worked its way through, an important new OECD report shows.

George Osborne’s “Autumn Statement” is certainly not a Pre Budget Report, as he promised it would not be. Instead, it is much more like a mini-Budget or even, given the timescales involved in many announcements, a mini-Spending Review.