With a Conservative Liberal Democrat government in place, it’s time to turn to their big plans, and first on the agenda is David Cameron and George Osborne’s proposed spending cuts, amounting to some £6.5 billion this year alone. In an economy just creeping out of a recession with marginal growth propping it up, it’s hard to see how spending cuts will impact the economy. Only time will tell, because whether you agree with them or not, it looks like they’re going to happen.
Fortunately, in a move that sounds more Liberal Democrat than Conservative in origin, the spending cuts are being put to the public for consultation along with business groups, trade unions and tink thanks. According to the Conservative’s website the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will publish the document containing information about this year’s Spending Review today, which will then be open to the public for comment , apparently to engage the country in what should and shouldn’t be covered by government spending.
On the back of all this, public spending will be cut and the information provided in the consultation could possibly be used to justify further spending cuts in years to come. If the government asks twenty people from the public what should be cut and five of them say urban regeneration, it’s hard to predict what the outcome will be.
If I contribute to the consultation, long and hard thinking will be needed to ensure I don’t contribute ammunition to potential future slashing spending cuts from the coalition government. On the up side, the process has had some success in Canada previously, so hopefully it will have a positive impact here too. The only pity is that there isn’t a consultation on the size of the cuts, or whether or not the public want spending cuts at all.
