Miliband promises ‘tough’ spending curbs

20 Dec 13
Ed Miliband has launched Labour’s review of all public spending with a pledge that the party will have a tough plan to get government borrowing down if it wins the next election.

By Richard Johnstone | 20 December 2013

Ed Miliband has launched Labour’s review of all public spending with a pledge that the party will have a tough plan to get government borrowing down if it wins the next election.

Publishing the first stage of a wholesale review of public sector spending with shadow chancellor Ed Balls, Miliband said the party had to plan to inherit spending proposals with deep cuts to departmental budgets.

Therefore, it would undertake a so-called zero based review of public spending, where all programmes are re-examined, as part of its deficit reduction plan.

Such a root-and-branch review was needed as neither the last Labour government nor the current coalition government were able to spend every pound of public money well, they stated.

In their foreword to the discussion document published by the party yesterday, Miliband and Balls said the government’s failure to meet growth forecasts from 2010 had increased the size of the required spending reduction.

A Labour government after the 2015 election would deliver a strong recovery as well as reforming public services as part of a tough deficit reduction plan, they insisted.

‘We will ruthlessly prioritise public spending and deliver service reform and improvements rather than just salami slicing budgets and watching services deteriorate.

‘It is the duty of government to continually look to improve services, to make difficult choices about priorities and to get maximum value for every pound of taxpayer money it spends. 

‘That duty will be all the more central for the next Labour government, in an era when there is less money around. Labour’s zero-based review will enable us to meet the challenge we face.’

Under the plans, every Labour shadow ministerial team will prepare a report on public service reform and redesign, setting out how they can be delivered with less money, and involving both the private and charity sectors. A summary of these reports will be published next spring, and shadow chief secretary Chris Leslie will work to identify savings and spending switches to match the party’s priorities. This process will use the limits set in Chancellor George Osborne’s Spending Review for 2015/16 as its starting point.

A full spending review will then take place in Labour’s first year in government, prioritising how to use departmental budgets to strengthen the economy and increase ‘fairness’ in public spending.

Spacer

CIPFA logo

PF Jobsite logo

Did you enjoy this article?

AddToAny

Top