SR2010: Watch welfare shrink
Benedict Brogan of the Telegraph has the first concrete tip-off that the government's "get out of jail" card is to be a cut in future welfare spending. The blog is .
The gist is that the OBR is about to pronounce that the welfare budget allocated in the Emergency Budget of June 2010 is too high, and will not be needed. Some centre-right think tanks also pointed out at the time that it seemed high - and provided wriggle room to ease the cuts on Departmental spending.
Just for clarity, there are two lines in the Budget - DEL (Departmental Expenditure Limit) and AME (Annually Managed Expenditure). You can't technically set that in a Spending Review, but you can predict it.
If you look at the last budget, Social Security plus Tax Credits rises from 186bn to 213bn by 2014/15 (hat tip to Neil O'Brien of Policy Exchange for this): if Robert Chote has discovered that they will not need to spend this much at all, that is one heck of a bunch of billions (nominally) to contribute towards the expected 83bn cut - on top of any specific reduction in entitlements like Child Benefit.
Watch this space. Am as we go.
Comment number 1.
At 20th Oct 2010, Ben wrote:can't you append to this page as well as tweet? many firms block twitter.... :-(
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Comment number 2.
At 20th Oct 2010, CaptRamius wrote:Isn't this a correction in an over-allocation that's not normally spent, rather than a cut from current service provision?
If so, then as you point out, it's protecting current services from the expected impact of the announced total requirement.
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Comment number 3.
At 20th Oct 2010, stevie wrote:Paul...who is at home with the Bankers? Yes, that's right the Conservative party...who is at home with the public services, you know the one they introduced the NHS, yes, that's right, the Labour party. So, who started all this mess, yes, right again, the greedy Bankers in America and here in blighty all around the trough filling their boots, so, in conclusion who is going to bear the heaviest cost of all this madness, yes, right again the weakest in our society, the pensioners, the youth and what of the bankers....off scotfree....again. Can you address this on NN...thanks...
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Comment number 4.
At 21st Oct 2010, JunkkMale wrote:'Watch this space. Am tweeting as we go.'
Good luck with that.
Here's a guide:
/blogs/aboutthebbc/2010/10/new-bbc-editorial-guidelines-l.shtml
Though it seems some colleagues may have missed a few modules.
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