<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Blog &#187; Cuts</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/tag/cuts/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog</link>
	<description>Institute for Government Blog</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 11 May 2012 13:23:41 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0</generator>
		<item>
		<title>The fiscal squeeze: now it gets real</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/2290/the-fiscal-squeeze-now-it-gets-real/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/2290/the-fiscal-squeeze-now-it-gets-real/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:38:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Julian McCrae</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[A more effective Whitehall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget deficit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Public Services]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=2290</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I’ve just returned from giving a seminar in Berlin to public servants from various European countries. They were eager for more details on the UK’s fiscal consolidation. When you tell our international friends that the UK is, for example, taking 20+% out of our law and order budget, a regular response is that &#8220;we are doing the same – a 10/20/30% reduction in the administration costs of our police&#8221;. It takes a little while for the penny to drop that our 20+% applies to the whole budget – administration, police pay, running costs of prisons, etc. The next question is invariably &#8220;do you really think the UK can achieve that?&#8221; Where it depends on political capital This is, of course, a question whose answer is automatically &#8220;it depends&#8221;.  The challenge has many elements. Many of the tax rises have already come in, with more due next week. But the almost 80% of our consolidation that comes from spending reductions is only just beginning. Many welfare cuts come into effect today. Further reductions in subsidy regimes will take longer – for example university teaching grants fall in 2012-13 (with the income to be replaced by tuition fees), while legal aid reductions are [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/2290/the-fiscal-squeeze-now-it-gets-real/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Thatcher files</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/1159/the-thatcher-files/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/1159/the-thatcher-files/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:07:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Catherine Haddon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Leadership for government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Political leaders]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=1159</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Writer L.P. Hartley&#8217;s famous opening line, &#8220;The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there&#8221;, is too often a very real feeling for those analysing government, where the pace of events and media can frequently contribute to a year zero mentality. The online publication of a number of files from the Thatcher Government&#8217;s first year in office is a timely reminder of the need for re-consideration of the lessons of that era, both the continuity and the changes. The Thatcher government&#8217;s agenda &#8211; sound familiar? Much is already known about the Thatcher government from the first-draft of history by journalists, political commentators and memoirs and diaries of the time (including the Thatcher government studies by our own Peter Riddell). But there is much more to be discovered, and government files such as these can offer a ringside seat on the inner workings of both politicians and the civil servants who supported them. Take the current crop of files and what they tell us about that government’s approach to the civil service and reform. The Thatcher government entered office with a zealous aim to reduce public expenditure, cut the size of the civil service and number of quangos and introduce greater efficiency [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/1159/the-thatcher-files/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The changing structure of public spending – accident or design?</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/965/the-changing-structure-of-public-spending-%e2%80%93-accident-or-design/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/965/the-changing-structure-of-public-spending-%e2%80%93-accident-or-design/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:18:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Julian McCrae</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget deficit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fiscal consolidation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spending review]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=965</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In 2006/07, I suspect very few people would have agreed that the government should: increase the share of our national income spent on pensioner benefits, the NHS and overseas aid through reduced spend on education, law and order, defence in the event of an unexpected recession, finance the interest on the debt through further reductions in these same areas. However, this is exactly what the Coalition government has done. How state spending is shifting The last government’s decision to stick to the fixed cash spending plans that emerged from the 2007 spending review, together with the (explicit and implicit) ringfences in last month’s spending review, have changed the structure of public spending. I&#8217;ve been playing with the numbers and have now got some figures to illustrate the effect. Commentators have focused on the scale of reductions implied by the Spending Review. But expected spend as share of GDP in 2014-15 (41.0%) is almost identical to actual spend in 2006-7 before the recession (40.8%). But what this disguises is a big shift in what we spend our money on: on the way into the recession, sticking to the cash plans meant big effective increases in spend, with health, education and benefit recipients as big [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/965/the-changing-structure-of-public-spending-%e2%80%93-accident-or-design/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Reining in the quango state: our four key findings</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/627/reining-back-the-quango-state-our-four-key-findings/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/627/reining-back-the-quango-state-our-four-key-findings/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:42:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Ian Magee</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[A more effective Whitehall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arm's length bodies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuts]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=627</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ministers have already said that the list does not represent current policy. But the desire to rein back the quango state was already clear in the coalition agreement and earlier announcements. Since arm’s length bodies account for some 13% of all government spending, a large scale rationalisation was always on the cards with the government seeking to achieve large scale fiscal consolidation. But this comes back to some of the key findings in our July report, Read Before Burning. First, over half of all quangos are small advisory bodies of experts with no independent budget or staff. Abolishing them may make sense if their advice is no longer needed – but it won’t save significant sums of money. In Read Before Burning we argued that since they advise, not execute, they should not be regarded as part of the arm’s length landscape at all. In addition, some of the bodies on the list are trading funds which raise fees to cover their costs. That is not reason to keep them if they no longer serve a purpose – but abolishing them won’t save money. Second, the really big money is tied up in relatively few bodies. In 2007-8 just 15 [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/627/reining-back-the-quango-state-our-four-key-findings/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Whitehall cuts: what we can learn from Canada and Sweden</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/559/whitehall-cuts-what-we-can-learn-from-canada-and-sweden/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/559/whitehall-cuts-what-we-can-learn-from-canada-and-sweden/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:12:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Page</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget deficit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fiscal consolidation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Public Services]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=559</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At a recent seminar, we decided to take a look under the hood of the Swedish and Canadian consolidations in the 1990s and find out what their administrations actually did. Senior civil servants from both countries gave us much food for thought. A tale of two countries The event quickly brought out the very different approaches to reducing public spending taken by Sweden and Canada. In Sweden, the focus was on reducing the cost of transfers (such as unemployment insurance), but leaving departments and agencies largely untouched in terms of staff numbers and service delivery. The Canadians reduced some transfers and subsidies too. However they took a more fundamental look at what the government should no longer be doing or could do differently. This led to a radical re-think of how several federal departments operated. The government here appears closer to the Canadian approach than the Swedish one. With cuts for most departments likely to average around 25% (and some departments could be much higher), it is clear business as usual is unsustainable. Transforming Whitehall and the wider network of service delivery it oversees will be vital. The Swedish rationale It is worth dwelling briefly on the rationale for the Swedish approach before [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/559/whitehall-cuts-what-we-can-learn-from-canada-and-sweden/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Why fairness matters when the cuts begin to bite</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/322/why-fairness-matters-when-the-cuts-begin-to-bite/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/322/why-fairness-matters-when-the-cuts-begin-to-bite/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Aug 2010 08:37:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Julian McCrae</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget deficit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuts]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=322</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Institute set out its views on fiscal consolidation, alongside the IFS, in a briefing shortly after the election.  A vital element, based on the experience of countries like Canada and Sweden, is securing a public mandate. This is not about trying to get people out campaigning for cuts.  Rather the two parts are that the public have to accept at a basic level that action is necessary, and that the particular actions of the government are guided by an underlying sense of fairness. Where are we on establishing these elements of a successful consolidation?  The insights from a three and a half days Citizens’ Jury event in Coventry, convened by Price Waterhouse Coopers, where 24 members of the public were asked to do their own consolidation process provide an intriguing set of lessons for Whitehall. Two important headlines stand out. Firstly, people can accept the case for difficult decisions when they are engaged in a meaningful discussion about the options. Secondly, fairness was a very important concept to the jury, who had a remarkably clear idea of what fairness meant to them and how they expected to see that play out through the consolidation process. So the starting point [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/322/why-fairness-matters-when-the-cuts-begin-to-bite/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

