Apr 2010 30

What to cut? The essential guide17

As we saw in last night's Leaders' Debate, the three party leaders have started to talk a little bit tougher on the need for cuts, but still seem flummoxed when it comes to the detail.

So, whether you're an ardent political activist, a frustrated taxpayer or a national Party Leader looking for some tips, here is our quick guide of what to cut:

Section 1: Tackling areas of spending that are not performing – Total: £7,705 million

1.1 Abolish the Bus Service Operators’ Grant – £451 million

1.2 End the ‘Preventing Violent Extremism’ grants – £15 million

1.3 Abolish Sure Start – £1,150 million

1.4 Abolish Building Schools for the Future – £2,300 million

1.5 Abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance – £530 million

1.6 Reduce ‘business skills’ support – £757 million

1.7 Halt further orders and upgrades for the Eurofighter – £740 million

1.8 Abolish England’s regional development agencies – £1,762 million

Section 2: Curbing over-extended government – Total: £1,595 million

2.1 Halve the government advertising and publicity budget – £270 million

2.2 Abolish Contact Point, the children’s database – £44 million

2.3 Abolish the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) – £1,181 million

2.4 Abolish identity cards – £55 million

2.5 Abandon plans to extend the compulsory school leaving age to 18 – £45 million

Section 3: Cutting out the middle-man – Total: £6,850 million

3.1 Halve public sector spending on consultants – £1,100 million

3.2 Reduce non-frontline staff in health and schools by 10 per cent – £975 million

3.3 Reduce the size of the civil service by 10 per cent- £1,320 million

3.4 Scale down local education authorities (LEAs) in England – £599 million

3.5 Slim down the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) – £1,317 million

3.6 End government funding for ‘green consultancy’ firms – £138 million

3.7 Abolish the Government Equalities Office – £70 million

3.8 Begin a thorough rationalisation of taxpayer-funded quangos and public bodies, including total abolitions, funding reallocations and budget cuts – £1,331 million

Section 4: Tackling specific budgets – Total: £5,762 million

4.1 Cut 25 per cent from the budget of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) – £725 million

4.2 One-year freeze of the resource and capital budgets of the Department for International Development – £862 million

4.3 One-year freeze of the Home Office resource and capital budgets – £360 million

4.4 One-year freeze of the grants from the Department for Communities and Local Government to local and regional governments – £687 million

4.5 Cut 10 per cent from the budgets of non-ministerial departments, except for the UK Statistics Authority – £1,728 million

4.6 One-year freeze of the grants given to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales (current spending only) – £1,400 million

Section 5: Tackling above-inflation indexing – Total: £1,441 million

5.1 One-year freeze of the basic state pension and the Minimum Income Guarantee – £1,441 million

Section 6: Restraining public sector pay and perks – Total: £14,750 million

6.1 Reduce gross annual pay by 15 per cent for the richest 10 per cent in the public sector – £3,762 million

6.2 One-year pay freeze across the public sector, excluding members of the armed forces serving in conflict zones – £4,240 million

6.3 A further one-year pay freeze (from 2011/12) across the public sector, excluding members of the armed forces serving in conflict zones – £4,240 million

6.4 Increase employee contributions to all unfunded public sector pension schemes by a third – £2,508 million

Section 7: Cutting middle-class welfare – Total: £11,999 million

7.1 Abolish child benefit and the Child Trust Fund, and increase the child element of the Child Tax Credit to address child poverty concerns – £8,447 million

7.2 Taper away the family element of the Child Tax Credit at 39 per cent immediately upon exhaustion of the child element of the Child Tax Credit – £1,350 million

7.3 Target spending on free bus passes for the elderly and disabled on those who genuinely need it – £438 million

7.4 Transfer funding of free TV licences to the BBC – £564 million

7.5 Abolish interest subsidy to student loans – £1,200 million

Grand Total: £50.1 billion

To learn more detail about each of these proposed cuts as well as the strategy and politics of cutting spending, check out our book: How to cut public spending (and still win an election).

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  • Mark

    Leaving aside whether or not any of this is sensible, it looks like you’re double counting – your cutting of the civil service by 10 per cent cuts across several of your cuts to departmental budgets, because a large part of those budgets is the funding of the civil service. Similarly, if you cut the number of civil servants then your pay freeze saves less money overall. Have you taken this into account?

  • http://www.taxpayersalliance.com Matthew Sinclair

    Mark,
    Yes, we have taken extensive steps to account for double counting in a number of areas. More details are provided in the book.
    Best,
    Matt

  • chris bonnick

    stop fighting other countries wars & come out of the E.U. we dont need them & they just want our money which we havnt got.

  • Ron Weedon

    Cutting is critical but creating more wealth is vital…when are we going to see focus on rebuilding British industry ?
    Ron Weedon

  • CJD

    Slash the BBC licence fee by 25% for starters!!! Put money back into peoples pockets and make this gravy train hit the buffers!!!

  • CJD

    Slash the size of the MOD get rid of the pen pushers & ensure thay have competent people running & signing projects/contracts that don’t waste gazillions on overruns and all the other rubbish that makes this outfit so inefficient. However, none of this can work without sacking Mr O’Donnell who will torpedoe all these efforts as he is ‘hard wired’ to do.

  • http://www.democracymovementblog.blogspot.com/ Stuart Coster

    There’s surely billions to be saved from our EU contributions? We’re set to hand over £7.6bn (net) this financial year alone.
    Nevermind the NI debate, where the lesser £6bn at stake is either kept by us or our elected government gets it. This is billions being flushed on an unaccountable organisation with a terrible reputation for waste that hasn’t had its spending fully approved by auditors for 14 years running. This should be a *massive* scandal at this deficit-dominated election!
    Immediate renegotiation is required by the incoming government. All the leading Dutch parties contesting their general election on 9 June are proposing an approx 50% cut in their contributions, so we’re far from alone in wanting change.
    Very surprised this isn’t on the list.

  • frankos

    in effect reduce the size of the gvt and expect the individual to take more responsibilty upon themselves.
    Fans of the Nanny State recoil in horror!

  • Mike Harring

    or just cut Trident and save £100 billion!

  • http://www.referendumlist.com Mike Hanlon

    Yes Mike, like home insurance is the first thing it’s sensible to cut when you’re short of cash? After all, it’s highly unlikely we’ll actually need it. Oh, wait, look at that. Something unexpected happened …

  • Laura

    Right because nuclear weapons are going to stop climate change and suicide bombs. I’m sorry to say that this isn’t an episode of ashes to ashes, we need weapons for today and the future.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/vesuro Vesuro

    You realise the saving from Trident would be £97b/30 years. That’s only £2.9b a year.
    Our nuclear deterrent and our seat on the UNSC is worth more than that.
    Our EU membership, however, should be looked at.

  • Steve Atkinson

    What about dealing with this wholly undemocratic blight upon our lives – Council tax.
    Steve

  • Ken

    Council leaders and senior staff have been paying themselves 6-figure salaries for some time. 31 senior officials are paying themselves more than the Prime Minister of England. 219 officials are being paid more than Cabinet ministers.
    Councils need to be trimmed from the top down, with little or no pruning being done at the sharp end where the real, necessary work is carried out.
    They work for us, but we have no say in how our money is being squandered on on their plush council offices, and fat salaries and pensions.

  • http://www.engleharts.co.uk david englehart

    i seem to recall that we give aid to china and india.the former is a country with a massive cash surplus the latter one with huge inequalities of wealth.the argument is that there is much poverty in these countries.so what.if you listened to gordon brown during his old labour rants you would think we in this country would still have the work house if the conservatives had their way.it may be you have somehow factored in cutting these obscene payments which enable self rightuous politicians to swell with goodness and self importance at international junkets –all at our expense of course.

  • http://donottrustthesepeople.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-difficult-is-it-to-cut-national.html DNTT

    Further analysis was done this morning on my blog in regards to tax revenues, overspending and the need for more exports.
    http://donottrustthesepeople.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-difficult-is-it-to-cut-national.html

  • http://www.alternativea5alliance.com Lynne Smyth

    Mark – I heard you on Radio Foyle today discussing spending in Northern Ireland etc. Did you know that the DRD is currently planning to spend £1billion on a new road in Co Tyrone – the A5WTC. It is completely unnecessary as we already have a road, the existing A5. £600million is coming from UK and the rest is supposed to come from ROI. There is no benefit for the people of Co Tyrone as this is a ‘flyover’. Rather it will ruin countless farms and businesses as well as fishing/tourism. If there is money to be spent on infrastructure it should be spent on a sustainable transport option – rail. But we all know there is no money so why are they doing this?