Darling's £15 billion to keep up appearances
Peter Hoskin 9:03am
So Wednesday's Budget will feature some £15 billion of spending cuts. Here's how the Times reports the latest bit of early information:
"The Treasury has already said it is seeking efficiency savings of £5 billion by 2011. Mr Darling is expected to say that should be extended by a further £10 billion over the following three years. There will be huge implications for public-sector jobs as 'back office' functions are pared back. Only frontline services such as education will have budgets protected."
You sense this is a rhetorical device, as much as anything; an opportunity for the Government to say that they're taking the "tough decisions" to "get our economy back on track". Given the vast amount of borrowing that's pencilled in for this year alone - some estimates have it approaching £200 billion - savings of £15 billion, spread over the next few years, hardly suggest that Brown & Co. are alive to the scale of the problem. And that's even considering the £35 bilion that they trimmed off public spending in the PBR.
And then you've got to wonder whether Darling can deliver. The much-vaunted Gershon programme was meant to result in about £21.5 billion of savings, but the National Audit Office cast significant doubts over whether even a fraction of the savings were "genuine and sustainable". Still, I suppose that's not really the point. By the time it comes to making deep savings, we'll most likely have a Tory government. For now - so far as Brown is concerned - it's all about keeping up appearances.
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Chris lancashire
April 20th, 2009 11:47am Report this commentIf the nation's finances weren't shot to pieces this would be laughable.
All sorts of double-counting, spin, announcements will subsequently be made to support a transparently dishonest target - as was the original and totally non-achieved Gershon figures. The only way to actually achieve a spending reduction is to list out, department by department, where spending cuts will be made then measure it through the National Audit Office.
The fact that the Govt. think they will be believed on this dishonest announcement shows how far they are detached from reality.
Jock
April 20th, 2009 11:48am Report this commentQuestion for Darling and Brown -
How did you manage to build up and preside over inefficiencies amounting to at least £15 billion?
Rhoda Klapp
April 20th, 2009 11:52am Report this commentIt's peanuts. And it may turn out to be imaginary peanuts at that. Surely it is not just a political move to get the tories to say it's not enough? Osborne should be prepared to call the whole budget as a fantasy, I'm sure there will be plenty of grounds.
And beware the pre-budget leaks. In Brown's day they were always a ploy. The small print was where the real budget lay.
kinglear
April 20th, 2009 11:56am Report this commentwhat is so pathetically sad is that this shower appear incapable of even contemplating really doing the right thing for economy and country. All they want is to stay in power and appear to be doing something. What they are really doing is bankrupting our children and our children's children.
Hawkeye
April 20th, 2009 1:29pm Report this commentJock said: "Question for Darling and Brown -
How did you manage to build up and preside over inefficiencies amounting to at least £15 billion?"
.
Easy - they joined the Labour party!
Hereford
April 20th, 2009 1:54pm Report this commentThe Gershon savings were largely smoke and mirrors. I worked on some of the so called staff reductions. The vaste majority were re-deployments to other departments, but were still claimed as savings. This is likely to be more of the same. The Labour party is so in hoc to the unions it can't do anything to significantly reduce headcount. Add to this the fact that on average the cost of getting rid of a Civil Servant is around £100k in compensation and pension payments and the cash flow issues around doing this are horrifying.
Jane
April 20th, 2009 2:28pm Report this commentAt least now they can't accuse the Tories of being the party of cuts without appearing to be completely hypocritical.
mac
April 20th, 2009 2:39pm Report this commentAs Rhoda and Hereford imply, this is just window-dressing, creative accounting designed to further con the long-suffering electorate.
The £15 billion figure will have been arrived at employing every tawdry trick in the bean-counting book. As such scamming is now the New Labour norm, close scrutiny of the small print will be necessary to expose the true picture.
richardj
April 21st, 2009 9:59am Report this commentWhy the surprise - surely the most incompetent handling of the economy since Wilson, Callaghan and Healey. They have been wrong on everything so far and now their only objective now is to remain in office (not power)until the election.
So they resort to increasing taxes which will produce less revenue (lessons learnt in the 1980's) and to cap it all they will promote this nonsense expecting the media and the electorate to believe them - some chance!
Ivy Eileen
April 21st, 2009 11:23am Report this commentSo far, this bunch haven't cut anything. For example, people get moved around, so there is the double counting of (i) a claim of being efficient and (ii) employment is "increased".
These figures anyway are chicken feed compared to the debt that has been incurred .. and which will continue to be incurred. They will leave a poison pill of an almighty mountain of debt for the next Government.
After 12 plus years in power, they will now try to claim virtue in claiming "efficiency savings". It's risible - last Sunday's Sunday Times' Employment Section had 4 NHS related advertisements. Once you read past all the twaddle about "defining strategy", "identification and delivery of initiatives", "devise innovative ways to deliver", "transformational leader", "develop an integrated service infrastructure" and "[understanding] measurement for change" (there was also a reference to being "politically astute"), you wonder what is the point of these people. One of them appears to be duplicating the Chief Executive's job. And there will then be all the little add-ons - a secretary, car, life etc policies, benefits and pension and a bonus...."and all the fleas will have little fleas on their backs to bite them".
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