Managers in both central and local government are being warned of the high risks of public sector spending cuts, in the wake of last week's Budget.
David Clark, director general of Solace, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, has warned of the "very stark" choices that face those in local government and the "very high" risks that may result from budget cuts in central department budgets.
On his regular blog for Solace, Clark writes [http://www.solace.org.uk/blog.asp]: "Many Whitehall departments still view local authorities as merely the local delivery agencies of centrally driven programmes. The danger for local authorities is that central departments overprune in those areas that directly filter down to local councils, and leave authorities with even bigger financial holes to fill."
His warning comes as The Times reports [http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Politics/article329501.ece] that central government departments are being given three weeks to come up with their proposals on cuts of up to a third in their budgets over the next four years, in order to start the budget-setting process before the parliamentary summer recess.
The final figures will be announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review on 20 October.
The government's commitment to cut a further £30bn from public sector budgets by 2014-15, in order to reduce the fiscal deficit, could lead to spending cuts of up to a third in some departments. Each department will be given a specific target for cuts, according to the Times.
In his Budget, the chancellor George Osborne announced that there would be a 25% cut in all public sector budgets, apart from NHS and overseas aid, whose budgets are being protected. Education and defence are being partly protected; they are set to escape the worst of the cuts and to prepare for flat spending.
Other departments will therefore by much harder hit and may have to prepare for cuts of up to a third in real terms over the next four years.
Clark notes that the size of the cuts means it will be impossible for local authorities to trim costs off existing activities in order to balance their books. "The choices facing authorities are as to which activities disappear completely and which can be afforded and must remain."
The government has also launched its consultation exercise on its public sector cuts. Polling company Ipsos MORI has responded [http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/publications/publication.aspx?oItemId=1366] with 10 tips for running effective consultative exercises.
They include providing the right level of information about budgets, to ensure people do not choose to cut services without understanding the wider context, and understanding the criteria people use to make decisions -it's important that preferences should not be based on misconceptions about, for instance, inefficiencies, notes the company.
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