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12 January 2010

New Labour claim that the Conservatives have a £34 billion black hole in their spending plans; The Conservatives claim that New Labour is contemplating 17% cuts in departments outside the NHS and police.

The general election campaign has started and no doubt in the weeks and months to come we will hear claim and counter claim as to what the parties will do if they win the election.

What we can be sure of is that there will be cuts.

In the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) Briefing Note "Britain’s fiscal squeeze: the choices ahead" it states at page 32:

Capital intensive departments are likely to be hardest hit, given that the plan for 2011–12 to 2013–14 is to cut investment spending sharply while current spending grows modestly. Squeezing investment spending much tighter than current spending would seem to fly in the face of the Labour Government’s longstanding insistence that it is important to protect investment, despite short term funding pressures, to support long run productivity. Capital intensive departments such as Transport and Communities & Local Government (who are involved with local housing) are likely to be particularly concerned. Not only do these departments have a high proportion of their DELs (Departmental Expenditure Limits) accounted for by capital (for example in 2007–08 the Department for Transport’s capital DEL, excluding depreciation, was 48% of its total DEL), but they also account for a significant proportion of total public sector net investment. Of total gross public sector investment in 2008–09, 22% went on transport and 19% went on housing.

Of course the cuts will impact on staff as well as capital spending. In the run up to the general election the Union will be increasing its recruitment activity. We will be trying to get as many staff as possible into the Union. While we are far from perfect we are the only force within the work place that is wholly on the side of staff; the only force that will argue consistently that civil servants, and workers in the public sector generally, should not be the scapegoats for the economic failures of others.
 

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