11 June 2010
The coalition government could head into trouble in its second or third year, according to political commentator Andrew Rawnsley.
Rawnsley told the CIPFA conference in Harrogate yesterday that year two, or the early part of year three, of this Parliament could be the ‘maximum moment of danger for the coalition’ because the country would still be deep in cuts but the ‘sunny uplands’ of recovery would still not be apparent.
He added that the Liberal Democrats, who have in the past been able to capitalise on mid-term discontent with by-election wins could find themselves losing.
‘They are not going to relish being punished,’ he said.
Rawnsley also observed that civil servants were likely to find themselves on a ‘steep learning curve’ as they prepare to implement spending cuts.
Successive years of spending increases meant that there was little knowledge within Whitehall of how to manage spending restraint.
‘There is no institutional memory in the Treasury about how to conduct severe spending rounds or in departments about how to cut. They are all going to be on a steep learning curve,’ he said.
The Treasury’s ‘centralising tendencies’ might also conflict with Prime Minister David Cameron’s desire to devolve power down to local government, Rawnsley added.
‘The danger is we end up with a devil’s pact,’ he said, in which Whitehall set out the spending cuts but left local government to deliver them and face the consequences.
