Tom Richmond: Osborne counts pennies as pen-pushers pay price

How many people would like to see more doctors, nurses and GPs recruited to the National Health Service?

I’m guessing that a significant majority would respond in the affirmative in the wake of the latest staffing crises.

Teachers? Same question, same answer.

The police? Ditto.

Yet how many people are prepared to pay more taxes in order to pay for these pillars of public service?

And here lies the conundrum that confronted George Osborne when the Chancellor set out his Autumn Statement, and Spending Review, that will set the financial and economic parameters for the next Parliament.

For, while most households, I presume, want to see more police, teachers and health professionals, they do not want to pay for these roles through increased taxes and would regard any such move as a betrayal of Tory pre-election promises.

And nor should they. It’s not as if Britain is close to bankruptcy despite the doom and gloom surrounding those budgets being cut – £4 trillion of taxpayers’ money will be spent over the next five years on key services and the economy is in far better shape today compared to May 2010.

Yet Britain would be close to bankruptcy, however, if Mr Osborne did not have the foresight to start tackling, albeit belatedly, the massive public sector bureaucracy which had become so convoluted that it believed the answer to every policy challenge was to recruit more officials who simply become obstacles to reform. It is a false economy that is no longer sustainable, and, thankfully, the Chancellor is in a position to act so every penny is made to count (one of the paradoxes is that spending is projected to increase in every year of this Parliament because of a burgeoning economy, ageing population and rising immigration).

In the week of the 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s downfall, Britain does not need bigger government – it requires better government which directs more money to those key front line services that top the public’s priority list.

However, in many respects, this is the biggest test of Mr Osborne’s Autumn Statement which wrong-footed many of the pessimists because of an unforeseen £27bn upturn in the public finances: to what extent will the Chancellor’s sound objectives be compromised by the professional meddlers, middle-managers and clipboard merchants who now find themselves in the firing line?

Though every job loss is a tragedy for those concerned, even more so in those areas of Yorkshire where local government and the NHS have been allowed to become the biggest employer, it is imperative that a greater share is spent on front-line staff like medical practitioners, teachers and police personnel – the latter should not have been subjected to so much uncertainty at a time when the terrorist threat from Islamist extremists is so severe.

Every public sector managerial post should be the subject of a thorough appraisal. If this principle had been in place, the Department for Transport would not, for example, be seeing its HQ costs fall by 37 per cent without investment in new roads and railways being compromised. It is the same 
for other Whitehall ministries and quangos. Britain must never again be allowed to become a nation of pen-pushers.

Yet the man with most to lose from this new economic ethos is, in fact, George Osborne himself. This was very much a prospectus for power – the Chancellor remains David Cameron’s likely successor at present – but this situation could easily change over the next 18 months or so if his financial forecasts have been so over-optimistic that he misses his self-imposed target of achieving a budget surplus by the end of this Parliament.

For, despite the raucous Tory cheers which greeted every new spending commitment, major challenges remain.

Will further education colleges be able to deliver the quality of vocational training that 16 to 18-year-olds require?

Will the private sector have the strength to create sufficient new jobs to lessen the country’s welfare dependence amongst working-age people?

Will the decision to permit local authorities to raise council tax bills by two per cent to pay for adult social care, and particularly the needs of the elderly, be acceptable to residents and sufficient to stave off the NHS bed-blocking crisis in Leeds and elsewhere?

However the margins are so tight that Mr Osborne will not have the wriggle-room to spend his way out of trouble if he faces another rebellion comparable to the furore over tax credits, and the planned cuts which he had to abandon. Such a volte-face would smack of weakness.

Yet, if he remains true to his gut instinct of presiding over a self-sufficient and self-reliant economy that rewards endeavour while protecting the most vulnerable, George Osborne will have earned the right to govern as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.

However the Chancellor will struggle to command the nation’s confidence if this Autumn Statement does not reverse the systemic shortages of doctors, nurses, teachers and police personnel in the meantime.

With Mr Osborne at pains to point out that the public finances are healthier than expected, and with £4 trillion at his disposal, it will be a failure of leadership if these shortages cannot be addressed over the next five years without resorting to significant increases in taxation.

Over to you, George – your country is counting on you to put the public’s priorities and pennies first.

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