Political

A better politics for less: where Nick Clegg’s axe would fall

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has launched a detailed plan for cutting the costs of government, A Better Politics for Less:

Balancing the government books isn’t just the political equivalent of an accountancy exam; Liberal Democrats seek austerity for the purpose of delivering a better Britain. The best way to reduce government expenditure is through significant reform, identifying big ticket items that can be done differently or not done at all. Simply squeezing budgets year-on-year, without identifying how to deliver better for less will just hurt the public services people rely on.

Unlike the previous Conservative proposals, these plans will both save a significant amount of money and improve the way our government is run:

  • Cutting the number of government departments from 24 to 14 (saving £314.2m per year)
  • Halving the number of departmental spin doctors (£7.44m)
  • Culling or merging 90 quangos and capping all senior salaries at the Prime Minister’s wage (£1.182bn)
  • Cutting the number of ministers to 73 and freezing their salaries (£1.88m)
  • Abolishing taxpayer-funded salaries for the Leader of the Opposition and party whips (£0.96m)

It’s particularly good to see the proposals to cut the number of ministers given, as I pointed out earlier:

In late 1914 when Britain ruled much of the world and was fighting a world war, there were a total of 49 ministers. Gordon Brown’s government currently has 119 ministers – an increase of 143%.

Some of the growth is for reasons most people across most parties would support, such as the creation of the National Health Service resulting in the creation of some new roles. But those areas of ‘consensus growth’ are relatively small, and to an extent are offset by the decline in the number of posts required by having an Empire.

Full details of the proposals are in A better politics for less, including cutting government advertising, restricting who gets chauffeured cars and requiring political parties to pay for the political Special Advisor posts:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All comments and data you submit with them will be handled in line with the privacy and moderation policies.