If the coalition is to meet its spending targets it will have to make further cuts to departmental budgets.
Public sector job losses could be significantly more than one million, according to a report published yesterday by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Due to the government’s failure to hit its savings targets, job losses in the public sector could be 300,000 higher by the end of 2017/18 than predicted, according to the IFS’s annual analysis of the government’s spending plans.
Within the IFS’s report, however, was also contained the prediction that, if the government continues to ring-fence the NHS budget, overseas aid and schools, spending cuts will need to be significantly more severe if the coalition is to meet the targets of its fiscal consolidation plan.
As things stand, just to keep his current savings plan on track, George Osborne will need to make much larger cuts to departmental budgets than he originally intended.
As we can see from the graphs below, the bar on the left represents what the government intends to cut while the bar on the right represents what the government will need to cut unless it reconsiders its policy of ring-fencing select budgets or increases government revenue through tax rises.
As the report phrases it:
“If such further cuts to departmental spending are not possible without a decline in the quality or quantity of public services that is unacceptable to politicians or to voters, then higher borrowing, further tax increases or social security spending cuts – perhaps after the next general election – must be on the cards.”
132 Responses to “More spending cuts on the way if coalition is to meet savings targets”
Newsbot9
Well done, you’re copy/pasting.
Shame that poorer White British kids are suffering it in increasing numbers. Remember Thatcher and kids milk? That wasn’t for no reason…
Absolutely_Passionate
Glad you liked the cut and paste from the NHS website.
If you read it you will see that the problem can be resolved by kids playing outside in natural daylight. This would also help to mitigate other problems like obesity and ADHD.
There is no milk shortage, it’s even available in newsagents and petrol stations, so the parents could pick some up when they go to buy their cigarettes and lottery tickets.
Newsbot9
No, it can’t. That can only solve one element of it, vitamin D deficiency. There are multiple other factors – calcium primary among them – which can lead to it.
And of course you think a luxury like milk is so easy to get, Keep spitting on the poor for the middle class buying fags and lottery tickets – you don’t have a clue what it’s like to be poor or what they buy, of course. You’re just moralistically attacking them.
Absolutely_Passionate
It’s not a luxury food – the price in Tesco is 49p per pint (less than half the price of a lottery ticket!)
BTW it contains calcium and vitamin “D”. Win/win.
Newsbot9
Yes, an expensive luxury. Keep comparing to something which has no meaning to the poor, but simply lets you spit at them.