Peter Hoskin

The malleability of ringfences

Rachel Sylvester is on top form in the Times today, and I’d urge CoffeeHousers to delve behind the paywall (or borrow someone’s copy of the paper) to read her column.  Its central point?  That ministers are discovering ingenious ways to exploit and undermine the ringfenced health and international development budgets.  The Home Office is saying that drug rehab programmes should fall under health spending.  The Foreign Office is trying to pass off some of their spending as development, and so on.  And, crucially, the Treasury seems to be going along with it:

“The Treasury seems to be tacitly endorsing this approach, with officials emphasising that departmental boundaries are artificial.”

As Sylvester says, there’s something “absurd” about all this.  After all, the government could have reached the same result by not ringfencing health and international development, and giving the other departments more money to spend on their current responsibilities.  But it also opens questions about intra-coalition relations.  The Lib Dems opposed ringfencing during the election – and with them now heading departments which have barely any crossover with the health and development budgets, they may feel they’re losing out on both counts.

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