English: Francis Maude MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Oliver Letwin MP, Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This is an excellent blog from Benedict Brogan, the Deputy Editor at the Telegraph. It’s well worth a read. Check it out!
Osborne is sharpening his axe – but will Cameron let him use it? – Telegraph Blogs
To regular readers of this blog, it will be no surprise that the Public Sector has not achieved the required levels of cost reduction (open this link for a selection of earlier blogs). From the beginning, this blog has argued that the Government, and especially the Cabinet Office, has been simplistic in its approach. Opportunities for genuine reform, embracing consolidation, outsourcing and transformation have been ignored in favour of a simplistic bacon-slicer approach that has hit front-line services. Enormous bureaucratic inefficiencies across the Public Sector, as well as widespread benefits abuse still remains.
What do you think will happen in the Autumn statement due in December?
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Pingback: Cameron and Osborne want growth – at any cost – Benedict Brogran – Telegraph Blogs « Dr Alf's Blog
The evidence is that George Osborne will not be allowed to force County Council, Police and Fire Command mergers with suitable delayering and the sacking of 50% of local authority workers who are not needed and never were.
He will do nothing significant to reduce the number of unnecessary Civil Servants, nothing to curb Royal expenditure and the Civil List and he will do nothing to stop the waste of Afghanistan, the maintenance of a naval task force off the coast of Iran, the use of Special Forces in Syria and the disgrace of the overseas aid budget overseen until recently by “know your (blank) place”, Andrew Mitchell a thoroughly useless and unnecessary Minister even before his recent outburst.
He will impose benefit cuts which the public approve of but will like a lot less when they are applied to them and he will do nothing to create jobs and growth on the scale required.
The new bank will not be up and running until mid 2014 and with just £10 billion of lending capacity it will be too little too late.
Variable taxes on food to reduce the obesity crisis and the costs of the NHS which are out of control will also not apply and the MOD will carry on wasting money along with the Home Office which is failing to control immigration.
Worse than that, because David Cameron has insulted the Chinese publicly so many times, we will not get their Sovereign Wealth Funds building needed infrastructure, so building workers will remain on the dole and blue collar unemployment will remain higher than it needs to be even after cuts.
Whatever cuts George Osborne makes will be too little too late and all because of Cameron and Clegg’s cowardice and the complacency of a Cabinet of largely intellectual lightweights unable and unwilling to act with the speed, decisiveness and ruthlessness to get the job done.
Frankly, we would do better outsourcing the entire Government to the Swiss or the Singaporeans, both of whom would do a far better job than this sorry collection of lame ducks, idle Civil Servants, establishment, “has beens” and public school educated Ministers lacking in drive, any sense of urgency or commonsense.
John,
Many thanks for your comprehensive response here which I broadly endorse although not necessarily your detailed argument.
I think that your response is very much worthy of public debate and have accordingly re-blogged it.
Alf