Departments which do not meet 5% cuts will not get new cash – Treasury minister
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Government departments which do not meet a 5% savings target in the upcoming spending review will not get cash for “new priorities”, a Treasury minister has warned. Darren Jones, who as Chief Secretary to the Treasury acts as deputy to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, also signalled Government spending is “long overdue a reckoning”.
As Chief Secretary, Mr Jones is responsible for assessing ministers’ requests for cash and has said he will adopt a “zero-based” approach that requires every pound the Government spends to be fully justified. This could become a tough process. Ministers have been told to find efficiency savings worth 5% of their departments’ budgets, but the rising cost of borrowing could mean even steeper cuts are required if the Government is to meet the fiscal rules it has set itself.
The alternatives – greater borrowing or more tax increases – have been effectively ruled out by Ms Reeves. Speaking at the one-day conference of the influential Institute for Government think tank, Mr Jones said: “Taxpayers and the users of public services obviously deserve better.
“We therefore won’t settle for doing things the same and hoping for a different result, we have to do things differently, and we will. “That is why funding from the Treasury to support new priorities will only be made available to departments that have first fulfilled the requirements of our zero-based review and met the minimum 5% savings and efficiency target required in this spending review process.”.
