Rochdale terminate their 15 year outsourcing contract with Mouchel after just 5 years

An interesting article can be found on The New Statesman rolling blog concerning outsourcing in local government.

The Public Accounts Committee recently alerted Minister the the fact that local authorities could be in danger of facing another Southern Cross debacle and having to implement last minute contingency plans.

Baron Sugar (or Sir Alan before his elevation) is certainly not everyone's cup of tea! However, one thing that most people will agree on is that he does understand business and how to create wealth.

Nearly 17 years ago, as a civil servant, I sat in a meeting with the Principal Finance Officer to be told that the £500k for my IT project had been suspended by the Treasury

London local government has pioneered some excellent collaborativecategory programmes in the last year - these included commercial fleet, postal services, ICT and highways management

It even made Radio 4 this morning, the publication of a Public Accounts Committee report on managing high value capital procurement in the NHS in England

As many readers will know the National School of Government - the former Civil Service College, closes in March next year.

This is the new slogan I used on the recent white paper - Having it All - which is starting to resonate across the UK public sector.

Today sees the launch of the Keep Calm and Save Money campaign backed by Ken Cole's new white paper "Having It All". The white paper is specifically aimed at English local authorities that want to improve services, reduce council taxes and balance their budgets