Is the new government marching across scorched earth?
They certainly claim so, and now they seem to have the civil service backing them up. Speaking to the Beeb this afternoon, Jonathan Baume, the leader of a civil service union, said that
senior civil servants had written “letters of direction” to Labour ministers in concern at the spending decisions they
took in the final months of their government. As Baume put it:
Good to know, even if only in retrospect. But retrospect isn’t much good when it comes to holding our politicians to account for their management of the public finances now. Which is why the Office for Budget Responsibility – coupled with plans to publish details of all spending over £25,000 – has such potential. Sure, it can’t safeguard 100% against fiscal recklessness. But greater openness will put huge pressure on our politicians never to scorch the earth again – lest we, the voters, catch them at it.“It’s not a decision that is taken very often to ask for such a letter of direction, which is why it is regarded something of a nuclear option. So when it happens it tends to be a big spending decision, where the civil service believes this is not the right thing to do.”
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