Today I have heard several reporters on the BBC, not to mention various print journalists, getting over excited about the ‘gaff’ by Lord Mandelson ‘admitting’ there was not going to be a Spending Review this year, or this side of a General Election – shock, horror! Continue reading “Spending Review Muggles”
Category: Spending
Parliament and Public Spending – interesting letter
I thought the following letter was an interesting addition to discussion about Parlaiment’s role in deciding budgets (see also my post on PF Blog) from former civil and public servant Des McConaghy. Continue reading “Parliament and Public Spending – interesting letter”
Public Spending in the UK: Public Sector Debt
The debate on the future of the public finances and especially spending on public services has finally come to the fore after all the diversions of the past few months.
What are the crucial questions that we should demand of our politicians? Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to try to outline what are the crucial policy issues – starting with public sector debt. Continue reading “Public Spending in the UK: Public Sector Debt”
Spending Reviews may survive Tory victory
Despite my doubts that the Conservatives would ditch the whole “Spending Reviews” (medium-term budgets plus performance targets) system, it appears they may not, at least not entirely.
Philip Johnson of the Daily Telegraph reported in an excellent article in Public Finance that the Tories plan to retain the Spending Reviews – although I have since learnt that it remains unlikely that they would keep the associated Public Service Agreements (PSAs). Tory rhetoric against “targets” has been very strong and retaining PSAs seems completely counter this rhetoric. Senior Tory figures also seem to think that whilst trying to stick to medium term budgets, to avoid damaging annual battles over cuts, the realties of the political and public finances situation make this ‘challenging’. Watch this space….
Westminster insiders see uncertain future for ‘Spending Review’ system.
As I have argued (see ‘The Death of Strategy in British Government’, May 5th below), the future of the Spending Review system introduced by Gordon Brown in 1998 is now in serious doubt. Continue reading “Westminster insiders see uncertain future for ‘Spending Review’ system.”
Public Finance roundtable on ‘performance’
Participated in a useful roundtable discussion on performance reporting and management, organised by Public Finance magazine – for a full report see Public Finance
Zen and the Art of Cutting without Cutting
When is a cut in public spending not a cut – when you can disguise it as an “efficiency saving”.
The first big round of ‘fantasy efficiency savings’ took place before the 2005 general election when the Labour and Conservative parties competed via the Gershon and James reviews – the two aforementioned gentlemen being business-persons (in those days when business could do no wrong) who allegedly ‘reviewed’ the public sector and came up with an impressive set of ‘efficiency’ savings. Continue reading “Zen and the Art of Cutting without Cutting”
Are spending cuts back? Deliberative poll results…
An intriguing new poll from PoliticsHome suggest an important shift in public attitudes on “tax and spend” issues.
“The results of this special deliberative study, involving a balanced group of over 1,400 people, point to a new landscape of public opinion on issues of tax and spend. Continue reading “Are spending cuts back? Deliberative poll results…”
Efficiency savings urged to ease pain of cuts
from the FT – By Nicholas Timmins
Published: March 10 2009 00:39 | Last updated: March 10 2009 00:39 Continue reading “Efficiency savings urged to ease pain of cuts”
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