By Mark Smulian
9 June 2010
The ‘brightest and best’ public sector experts will be placed on a Spending Review challenge group to propose innovative ways to cut costs, Chancellor George Osborne has told Parliament.
In a June 8 speech on his approach to this month’s emergency budget and the autumn spending review, the chancellor called for ‘a complete re-evaluation of the government’s role in providing public services’, using both experts and the public.
The expert group would ‘act as independent challengers and champions for departments throughout the process’.
Members, as yet unnamed, would be drawn from within and outside government and might include ‘the inspirational head teacher, the far-sighted police chief, the nurse with new ideas about solving age-old problems’, the chancellor said.
Whitehall finance directors would have a ‘strengthened role’ to ‘embed strong financial discipline at all levels of government’, although Osborne gave no details of how this would work.
All departmental budgets will be reviewed by a ‘star chamber’ led by Osborne, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, and other senior ministers.
But the chancellor singled out social security, tax credits and public service pensions as areas that he would ‘comprehensively examine’.
A review of capital spending plans would seek to ‘identify the areas of spending that will achieve the greatest economic returns’, and Whitehall would be required to make more efficient use of property.
Central government administration spending, including that of quangos, will have to fall by one-third and departmental public service agreements will be scrapped in favour of business plans that detail resources required.
Osborne said the government would also seek savings by renegotiating contracts and maximising the public sector’s collective buying power.
The chancellor told Parliament that he also wanted to involve the public in setting spending priorities and in determining which activities should be carried out by the state, based on a system used in Canada in the 1990s.
‘This is the great national challenge of our generation: after years of waste, debt and irresponsibility, to get Britain to live within its means,’ he said. ‘It is a time to rethink how government spends our money.’
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: ‘The government seems hell bent on making damaging cuts to public services – but cuts have consequences. We do not want a repeat of the race to the bottom that inflicted so much damage on our public services in the past.’
9 June 2010
The ‘brightest and best’ public sector experts will be placed on a Spending Review challenge group to propose innovative ways to cut costs, Chancellor George Osborne has told Parliament.
In a June 8 speech on his approach to this month’s emergency budget and the autumn spending review, the chancellor called for ‘a complete re-evaluation of the government’s role in providing public services’, using both experts and the public.
The expert group would ‘act as independent challengers and champions for departments throughout the process’.
Members, as yet unnamed, would be drawn from within and outside government and might include ‘the inspirational head teacher, the far-sighted police chief, the nurse with new ideas about solving age-old problems’, the chancellor said.
Whitehall finance directors would have a ‘strengthened role’ to ‘embed strong financial discipline at all levels of government’, although Osborne gave no details of how this would work.
All departmental budgets will be reviewed by a ‘star chamber’ led by Osborne, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, and other senior ministers.
But the chancellor singled out social security, tax credits and public service pensions as areas that he would ‘comprehensively examine’.
A review of capital spending plans would seek to ‘identify the areas of spending that will achieve the greatest economic returns’, and Whitehall would be required to make more efficient use of property.
Central government administration spending, including that of quangos, will have to fall by one-third and departmental public service agreements will be scrapped in favour of business plans that detail resources required.
Osborne said the government would also seek savings by renegotiating contracts and maximising the public sector’s collective buying power.
The chancellor told Parliament that he also wanted to involve the public in setting spending priorities and in determining which activities should be carried out by the state, based on a system used in Canada in the 1990s.
‘This is the great national challenge of our generation: after years of waste, debt and irresponsibility, to get Britain to live within its means,’ he said. ‘It is a time to rethink how government spends our money.’
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: ‘The government seems hell bent on making damaging cuts to public services – but cuts have consequences. We do not want a repeat of the race to the bottom that inflicted so much damage on our public services in the past.’
