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The Government wants to close down the Audit Commission within three years in order to save the taxpayer about £50m a year. The measure comes as part of the Prime Minister’s "Big Society" plans for more transparent government and an increased say for the public in how councils are run.

Showing just how out of control the amount of money sloshing about in football is, Portsmouth FC could have ended up in liquidation. The club have survived a High Court challenge from the taxman after HM Revenue & Customs had asked the court to block proposals that would have helped ‘Pompey’ out of administration. HMRC did this because it thought the CVA system was unfair as certain creditors could claim much more than others.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s promises to attack what he sees as a bloated public sector came to fruition when a cull of taxpayer-funded organisations was announced. Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, said that half of the ‘arms-length bodies’ run by his department were to be abolished.

In order to drive down costs senior policemen are proposing to get rid of thousands of injured officers. The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) have drafted a scheme that sees severance packages being offered to around 15,000 officers whose injuries mean they are no longer able to work on the front line. Under present rules police officers cannot be made redundant, but Acpo is urging the Government to change that.

Like its counterpart south of the border, the Scottish public sector is set for huge cuts, a government commissioned report said this week. It warned that 60,000 jobs would be lost, and it also called for an immediate review of all free universal services. The Independent Budget Review Group recommended no public services should be spared from budget cuts.

It appears the credit crunch has bitten at one of TV’s most popular peak time shows. It has been hotly tipped that the pay structure for this year’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ has been altered so the competitors will only be paid per dance. It will ensure that if one the stars who dance with the professionals has leaden feet and is voted out early on, he or she does not get a big six-figure payment.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents many rank and file civil servants, expressed concern about the assembly government in Wales’ plans. The government’s economy office is to shed 250 jobs in order to bolster its economic renewal programme. A PCS spokesperson said: "We are concerned about the sheer scale of the cuts and the likely effects on workload and work-life balance for staff.

An investigation of police working regimes found that some spend more time a year at home than on the job, due to the way shifts are set up. The police inspectorate also found that more uniformed police are on duty on quiet Monday mornings, when they should least be needed, than at any other time of the week.

Time and Attendance UK Ltd’s state of the art single time clock time and attendance solutions will result in greater productivity and save your business time and money – do not follow the example of other bodies that have been criticised for waste. Birmingham City Council’s administration of the Working Neighbourhoods Fund is under attack.

The coalition government is bidding to reduce NHS management costs by 45 per cent over the next four years, and as a result many thousands will lose their jobs in the biggest shake-up since the health service was born. This is because all primary care trusts (PCTs) will be axed in three years’ time, and the management of care will be taken on by groups of family doctors.

The risk of falling victim to crime has plummeted to its lowest level in nearly 30 years. The British Crime Survey announced that for England and Wales the risk of becoming a victim of crime last year was 21.5 per cent, the lowest since the survey, based on interviews, started in 1981 (27.7%). The risk was 23.3% in 2008/09 and reached a peak of 29.7% in 1995. Burglaries, incidents of criminal damage and offences against vehicles continue to have high unsolved rates.

British workers pull 35 million "sickies" a year, which is a quarter of the total for the whole of Europe, research has found. Brits were nearly twice as likely to feign an illness as Germans and five times more likely than the Danes, Aon Consulting found. The firm said: "Fictitious sick leave is costing the UK economy millions." The study found that Danes were the least likely to fabricate illness to get time off work.