Public Sector Cuts: A How-To Guide
There is a new widget on the FT website (free registration) which invites us to choose where we think that the deficit-cutting axe should fall, and reflects the impact that those choices will (according to them) have.
There is a choice of Party, which auto-ringfences certain budgets, or the sensible option of getting on with the job unfettered by the clarion call of your wealth-creator/union/bearded-weirdy (select party of choice there) financial backers.
So, eyes down and get cutting….
£81.3 billion, and still with two decent sized aircraft carriers in the pot. Excellent result. Annoyingly once you’ve hit what they consider ‘good enough’ there’s an irritating pop-up box which tries to stop you. Ha! We laugh in the face of such things, and click onwards…
The final page tells us what effect these savings would have (in the opinion of the FT). Most are end of the world as we know it, strikes, riots, wailing and gnashing of teeth type stuff….’will hit the very poorest’….’100,000 jobs will be lost’….’will increase teachers’ workload’ (that’ll give’m something to do on those massive holidays)….‘annual household loss of £500’ (or our EU membership fees for 7236 femtoseconds) but there isn’t a Smartarse button to tick showing that you guessed that was coming which was why you didn’t cut the Forces.
Give it a go. You won’t get re-elected by taking the required decisions, which is why the Coalition won’t take them and we are all suppose to gasp at the audacity of George Osborne’s paltry £6bn surface skimming. Tough times call for tough measures. Let’s hope for the sake of the country that today’s announcements by Osborne to the HoC are only the start.
If it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working, as someone once said.
Interesting widget. The only thing is, it’s a bit cut and dry. Black and White, there are places you could make cuts (say in admin staff) and not essential staff. It’s too simplfied.
It’s odd that you say that because the post went on to that angle but I deleted that bit because it was too long already.
I’ve attached the example I intended to use – a screenshot of the “results” of my decision to abolish the Dept of Culture. Apparently that means I’ve also axed all of its grants, which wasn’t (perhaps) my intention. So as you say, it could be more granular to make its point.
I only scored a modest 3% in the green but I wasn’t being particularly ruthless.
Mmmm. (Note to self) Must do better.
Good fun and so easy to hit targets. I wanted to cut even more though..
Some of us would close every department that wasn’t core (Defence (although the MoD would have HUGE cuts), Courts, Police and Mental “Health”.
This sort of thing encourages across the board cutting as you tend not to focus on one sector but share the burden more evenly. With more options you’d have shot past your 3% without too much soul-searching.
Where was the option to cut the EU contribution, eh? You wouldn’t need to cut anywhere else then.
With the Police, though, the FT defines it purely in terms of 1997 headcount. Take away the targets and the quotas, which lead to ‘easy’ and ‘lazy’ arrests and the same level of real crime could be tackled with fewer in the Force.
Ditto with the MoD. It’s procurement where the huge savings are to be had – more expensive EU collaborations purely for political reasons should stop.