Sponsored by
Cuts sure to be on the agenda whoever wins general election
CUTS, efficiencies, savings – however you want to word it, tougher times are on the way.
And whichever party leader walks into Downing Street after the election next spring, the public sector is in for a bumpy ride.
Official Treasury figures show that over the past decade, the amount of public money spent in Yorkshire and the Humber – as across the country – has soared, rising from 21.5bn in 2003/04 to 27bn in 2007/08.
Annual spending includes 8.4bn on health, 6.4bn on education and 15.3bn on welfare, figures which positively dwarf the 1.1bn spent on transport and 609m on environmental protection.
But with a budget deficit of 175bn which the Government has pledged to halve in four years, spending across the public sector will have to be pegged back significantly.
The cuts will affect the public services ordinary people receive, could change the benefits they are entitled to, and will also have an impact on thousands of jobs with more than 700,000 public workers in Yorkshire and the Humber.
"In the absence of very large tax increases, whoever wins the next election will need to make significant cuts in public spending to reduce public sector borrowing as quickly as the Treasury currently intends – let alone to do so more rapidly," the respected economic think-tank the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned.
It says a "range of options" exists, about which the political debate in the run-up to the election will focus. If Whitehall spending is not cut in real terms, 29bn of tax cuts would be needed to plug the hole in the public finances – the equivalent of 930 per family every year.
Getting "more for less" is the mantra of all political parties but while efficiencies and cutting back office costs are the preferable way of saving money, there are major question marks over how far they alone can go to seriously reducing spending.
The era of plentiful school and hospital rebuilding is likely to be coming to an end, and transport and housing, two areas which drain a lot of capital funding, are likely to be particularly susceptible.
Experts predict Ministers will resort to old ways and slash transport funding to bring down public spending, and the fact money can be easily realised by delaying projects rather than cancelling them altogether makes them vulnerable.
"Transport expenditure is less visible in terms of what you cut," said one economic analyst. "People don't necessarily see the immediate impact of what road is built or not, as opposed to whether their hospital was due to get a new wing and doesn't get the new wing."
Labour has yet to say little in detail about its plans other than wanting to cut the 175bn deficit in half in four years. Shadow Chancellor George Osborne outlined a series of austerity measures planned by the Tories, and the Liberal Democrats have produced the most extensive list of specific projects which could be cut.
Rosie Winterton, Minister for Yorkshire and the Humber, said: "We're going to manage the debt issue over a four-year period, as set out in the Budget.
"We're going to ensure we don't damage frontline services, we're not going for savage cuts as the Tories are."
The Tories and Liberal Democrats, however, question how realistic the Government is being about tackling the budget deficit until Chancellor Alistair Darling reveals more of Labour's plans in the forthcoming Pre-Budget Report.
But in Yorkshire, public sector bosses know what may be coming and are already planning for the new era after more than a decade of rising spending.
Senior managers at councils are drawing up plans which could seriously cut workforces to save money.
Police forces are planning to merge more of their resources to save money. Plans to save millions of pounds from health budgets are also in the pipeline.
Bosses at regional development agencies are also wise enough to realise their budget will be under intense pressure even if Labour, which has put the agencies at the front of efforts to tackle the recession, holds on to power.
TRANSPORT
Transport schemes are seen as more vulnerable to the risk of spending cuts. Those due to be carried out after 2011 whose funding cannot be guaranteed include:
Leeds Next Generation Transport trolleybus scheme – 2011-19 – 260.87m
A63 Castle Street, Hull – 2015-19 – 173.11m
M18 Finningley link road – 2013-16 – 80.01m
Sheffield, Rotherham bus corridor – 2012-18 – 77.87m
Integr8 improvements to South Yorkshire links – 2012-19 – 30.5m
Leeds Station Southern Access – 2011-14 – 14.17m ACn East Leeds Parkway Station – 2011-13 – 10.75m
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Yorkshire
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
