Alistair Darling needs to tell us that frontline services will be affected by cuts
Andrew Haldenby 1:10pm
The credibility of the Chancellor’s Budget tomorrow depends on the policy changes that he announces for the public sector. It won’t be enough for him just to announce a series of public spending totals that decline gracefully in the years to come. Within some broad limits, anyone can do that. What counts is whether he backs it up with practical ideas to target the big government costs, which lie in two places - benefits and the public sector workforce.
In retrospect, the general election has fallen at the wrong time for the UK public finances. Since early last year, the prospect of an early election has allowed the Government to put off the date of publication of its full plan to address the deficit. The most negligent decision was to put off the spending review which was due last summer. That would haven given a sense of the Government’s new priorities for each of the big public services. Philip Hammond is right that the Chancellor really needs to publish that spending review tomorrow.
While the UK has been waiting for its election, the other heavily indebted EU countries - the PIGS of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain - have been getting on with it. They have had to publish plans to restore their deficits as part of the terms of their membership of the Stability and Growth Pact (here is Portugal’s). Those plans give an idea of what we need the Chancellor to say:
They are cutting public sector headcount. Ireland, Greece and Spain have imposed recruitment freezes so that the headcount falls through natural wastage. This can bring down headcount quickly - the annual turnover rate in UK education is 11 percent, for example, and 15 percent in healthcare.
They are cutting pay. Some Irish public sector workers are facing pay cuts of 15 per cent.
They are reducing benefits. Portugal is increasing means-testing benefits and Ireland is reforming public sector pensions.
One of the most encouraging moments in the run-up to the Budget has been Liam Byrne’s comment that the NHS should save billions by closing hospitals and designing new services based around primary care. That is right in itself. More importantly, it is the kind of detail that gives you some confidence that the Government actually envisages real change in the public sector to make it more efficient.
This doesn’t mean that we need Alistair Darling to announce that government ministers will personally ensure a certain level of cuts in headcount. No - he needs to announce a programme of reform that holds local managers locally accountable and allows them to make the right local decisions. But he does need to make it clear that public services are going to change and reduce in size and scope - and that includes the frontline.
Andrew Haldenby is director of Reform.
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GDT
March 23rd, 2010 1:19pm Report this commentall sounds good - but it won't be what Joe Public wants to hear. So expect a budget of bluff and B**S**T. A fair bit of poisoning can be expected also.
Hysteria
March 23rd, 2010 1:32pm Report this commentcan you clarify this please?
"the annual turnover rate in UK healthcare is 11 per cent, for example, and 15 per cent in healthcare."
Moraymint
March 23rd, 2010 1:37pm Report this comment"... but he does need to make it clear that public services are going to change and reduce in size and scope - and that includes the frontline ..."
Except the armed forces' frontline, I trust; certainly for as long as they're providing target practice for the Taliban.
I was dismayed to hear today the Public Accounts Committee announce that, "Britain's defence budget is fundamentally unaffordable".
Hardly surprising given the mother of all disasters that is now the UK's foreign and defence policy.
Tony Blair saw himself as some sort of latter day Roman Emperor and fantasised about project power around the world. The problem is that the economic illiteracy of Marxism doesn't sit too easily with funding our armed forces properly. As Gordon Brown well knows (and loves).
We need to get rid of these people pronto. Perhaps our under-funded generals could help out us beleaguered citizens with a battalion or two here and there (like on the streets of Birmingham and Manchester)?
See you on the Start Line.
JP
March 23rd, 2010 1:45pm Report this commentDeficit = Government spend minus tax revenues in any given year
National Debt = Accumulation of deficits
Why don't people, including journalists and politicians understand the difference.
Brown wants us all to believe the DEBT will be halved when he says the deficit will be halved. It is scratching the surface.
Chris lancashire
March 23rd, 2010 1:46pm Report this commentUnfortuately he won't. And even if he did it will still be based on "halving the defecit in 4 years" - a totally inadequate target. Who will still be lending UK plc £80bn p.a. in 2014 when the accumulated debt will be well over £1 trillion?
SUSAN HILL
March 23rd, 2010 1:50pm Report this commentMeanwhile, it was announced last week that we are to get a brand spanking new community hospital.
djw2009
March 23rd, 2010 1:52pm Report this commentMuch of this "primary care" nonsense is code for preaching at the population instead of just providing healthcare services. I therefore reject Haldenby's arguments in this article.
Noa Zrk
March 23rd, 2010 1:53pm Report this commentAndrew
You write as a reasonable man objectively analysing a desparate situation and struggling to make the best of it.
You should really put yourself in the positions of the crazed loon sinking his very fingernails into the door frame of No 10 to prevent the attendants dragging him out and his venal flipper, the fiscal procuror next door.
Do you seriously believe that the purpose of the budget is to fix the country's finances?
Rather it's all about Big Ger and how he can retain power. Ali realises that, and won't want to cross hom, especially with the Hewitt/Hoon gibbets swinging gently in the Spring breeze to warn the minions what happens.
No the budget is easy for Gordon, no cuts until after it to keep the client voters on side. Afterwards, if he wins it, the fear and threat of cuts will ensure loyalty and compliance.
Classic totalitarianism.
Austin Barry
March 23rd, 2010 1:54pm Report this commentReading this post you'd think all was going well for the PIGS as they "get on with it". We know about the riots in Greece, but this from today's Irish Times:
"Several hundred people have gathered at the Passport Office in Dublin's Molesworth St today in the hope of collecting passports despite the ongoing industrial action by members of the CPSU over public service pay cuts.
Shortly before lunchtime the building was evacuated with security staff saying they were responding to a "bomb scare". A number of gardaí entered the building shortly afterwards.
A large group of people standing on the street outside the office started chanting after the evacuation: "What do we want? We want our passports now." Molesworth Street has been closed to traffic and diversions are in place. Gardaí are starting to move people away from the passport office building."
Interesting times ahead, chums....
Pete Hoskin
March 23rd, 2010 2:12pm Report this commentHysteria: Apologies, it should have bee:
"the annual turnover rate in UK healthcare is 11 per cent, for example, and 15 per cent in healthcare."
Fixed now.
Stevie
March 23rd, 2010 3:04pm Report this comment'Credibility' and 'Alastair Darling' in the same sentence...*snigger*.
Hysteria
March 23rd, 2010 3:31pm Report this commentAustin - re the Irish passport protest.
This further supports my general thesis on the next (?) thread to the effect it is only when a specific issue affects a specific group that they may take direct action. This is a long way removed from a general/mass protest - far less an actual revolution.
The Brits don't "do" revolution - not recently anyway.....
RKing
March 23rd, 2010 4:26pm Report this commentI predict that there will be some gimmick similar to the Brown 10p tax fiasco.
It will seem like that they are doing something good........
........ until you read the small print.
Brown & Darling or Laurel & Hardy?
I prefer the latter they were meant to be jokers!
Old Gregg
March 23rd, 2010 10:55pm Report this comment@Moraymint
"Except the armed forces' frontline, I trust; certainly for as long as they're providing target practice for the Taliban.
I was dismayed to hear today the Public Accounts Committee announce that, "Britain's defence budget is fundamentally unaffordable"."
If anything should be cut it should the renewal of the Trident Nuclear weapon system, which will cost about £97Billion over its 30 year life. This is why the defence budget is fundamentally unaffordable because it's being spent on obsolete cold war weapons that have no relevance to today’s world and wont protect us from terrorists and wont prevent the “armed forces' being used as target practice”
Even some of the military’s most senior figures such as former Chief of the Defence Staff (Field Marshal Lord Bramall), two former Generals (Lord Ramsbotham and Sir Hugh Beach) and recently the ex-head of the army General Dannatt have all questioned spending large amounts of money on weapons that are not relevant to modern conflicts.
Just think what £97 Billion could be spent on.
Noa Zrk
March 24th, 2010 7:36pm Report this commentOld Gregg
"...Just think what £97 Billion could be spent on..."
Yes, almost one years social security and benefits expenditure.
Traded against the ability to provide a nuclear deterrent against rational enlightened countries like North Korea and Iran and unstable nuclear nations like Pakistan, Trident, at less than £3b per annum, is bargain basement national insurance.
James Alan
March 24th, 2010 8:47pm Report this commentIt should be spent on supporting our troops by giving them the equipment they need for modern warfare. The world has moved on from the cold war, we are now fighting two wars that at the moment look un-winnable, how exactly will nuclear weapons help the situation.
Noa Zrk
“Traded against the ability to provide a nuclear deterrent against rational enlightened countries like North Korea and Iran and unstable nuclear nations like Pakistan, Trident, at less than £3b per annum, is bargain basement national insurance.”
The reason countries like Iran want nuclear weapons is because they feel threatened by countries who do have them i.e. the U.S, Isreal and the U.K. We don’t really have any credible argument for them not to get their own nukes if we’re about to renew our own.
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