Upcoming CSR

Over the weekend I have received a few emails from CF members about the upcoming Spending Review on Wednesday asking what it’s all about and what I think about it so here goes.....

This year the UK will be borrowing £109 billion which amounts to £4,000 for every home across the country. Over the course of the current parliament, the total cost of overspending will be £292 billion. Remember that this is a result of Labour’s mismanagement of the economy that has nothing to do with the recession as Alan Johnson (Shadow Chancellor) detailed in his speech this morning.

In Labour’s last year in office the Government spent £600 billion which equates to around £10,000 for every man, woman and child in the UK. In 2014-15 the Coalition Government plans to spend £692.7 billion which equates to £11,500 per head. This shows that increased spending can occur against a background of cuts.

When the Coalition Government came to power they planned to cut government departmental budgets by 25% by 2014-15. The six key departments are: Education; Business, Innovation & Skills; Communities & Local Government; Justice; Home Office and Energy and Climate Change.

The budgets that have been ringfenced are for the frontline of the NHS, overseas aid and some education spending. On Saturday it was leaked that the Defence budget would only suffer a 7% cut which is a large reduction from the Treasury’s original forecast of a 20% cut.

Last weekend the think tank Policy Exchange wrote a report entitled ‘Controlling Public Spending- How to cut 25%’ which makes interesting reading 

The major conclusion that I took from this report was that the cuts could be a lot higher than 25% “To maintain the ringfences to health, international development along with the lower targets of cuts to defence and education it will mean that some departments may need a cut of at least 33%”

To read more on the Spending Review click here  and look on ConHome for opinion and commentary on this.