Or very nearly at least. Approximately a month after taking office the coalition government is now carefully laying out their plans to cut public spending. David Cameron gave a speech earlier this week in which he hinted that the reality of the nation’s finances were even worse than he had asserted in opposition. It follows the announcement by George Osborne and David Laws of £6 billion of savings in government spending and ahead of the hotly anticipated emergency budget, Cameron’s speech was pitched to place a renewed urgency on action to cut the deficit. However, perhaps the most important function of the speech was to make an appeal to the public to accept the measures to cut spending as inevitable. For those of you that don’t have time to pour over the prime minister’s every word the predictable key messages were as follows:
- we’ve inherited a mess, and a big one
- we’ll have to make tough decisions – we understand they won’t be universally popular
- cutting spending is in the national interest and we all need to take action now.
It is hard not to read an extra ‘please don’t hate us’ plea into the speech. Cameron gave very little detail of what would actually be cut but he did mention big areas of spending like pay and pensions and benefits. Turning this into a national debate will be key to how the successfully the coalition manages to stick to its spending plans. Cameron also knows carrying the public along with him will be a tall order once those measures start to affect individuals.
In quick succession and with the budget date looming, the treasury has outlined a tight timetable for the secretaries of state to submit plans on how they intend to meet ‘a tough new set of criteria to deliver value for money.’ But they have also announced that they will embark on a period of external engagement between the government, the private sector, the general public, voluntary and charitable organisations and experts, in order to obtain the best ideas from those most involved in and affected by public services. It could be described as crowd sourcing the budget but how sensitively this process is carried out will be critical to formalising that ‘national debate.’ Much has been made of discussions between the prime minister and his Canadian counterpart who also embarked on some strict deficit cutting measures. The Canadians famously blew up an entire hospital as a symbol of their commitment to reduce public spending. Even with a comprehensive national debate, I would be very surprised if the coalition or indeed the general public in the UK have the stomach for such high profile gesture politics.
The next edition of Whitehall Watch will cover all the key announcements from the budget.
