Downing Street Says » Treasury announcements/economy

Asked whether all spending decisions since January would now be under review, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that the announcement made this morning was about all spending decisions made since January. All those spending decisions, including things such as pilots would be looked at again to see whether we should proceed with them.

Asked if things that had already been signed off would be looked at again, the PMS replied that he would not try and anticipate what might be found in this process; decisions would be made after the process had finished. Asked if this included every Whitehall department, the PMS confirmed that it did.

Asked whether the PMS agreed with the Chancellor that Treasury officials were involved in inventing works of fiction , the PMS said that the Budget forecast was the Chancellor’s forecast and that was set out in legislation. Today’s announcement meant that the process of making forecasts and assessments of the fiscal position would be done independently.

Asked if there was any procedure whereby civil servants have in the past been involved in producing works of fiction , the PMS replied that the procedure was for officials to advise and Ministers to decide and the old forecast procedure was consistent with that.

Put that as these were Treasury forecasts, the implication was that people could trust them, the PMS replied that the forecast was the Chancellor’s forecast and that had always been the position.

Put that the Prime Minister had spoken of inspiring people but how would he inspire people who had lost their jobs, the PMS said that the Chancellor had already set out his priorities for the economy this morning and this had also been discussed in the Prime Minister’s joint press conference last week. Clearly there was a difficult job ahead; the priority for economic policy would be to tackle the deficit, but another priority was to get Britain working again.

Asked about the 6billion of savings and when those would be available, the PMS said that there would be an announcement soon.

Put that the Chancellor had said this morning that the aim was to protect key public services rather than frontline services, the PMS replied that there was a process to go through in terms of public spending. There would be a Budget on the 22nd June and a Spending Review would follow. The Prime Minister had said that he thought efficiencies could be made and that the key to this was to try and get more for less and to reform public services so that we could improve them while also dealing with the deficit problem.

Asked what the difference was between a key public service and a frontline service, the PMS said that he would not get into a semantic argument. The process of a Spending Review was one of making choices on public spending and that’s what would happen.

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» Monday, May 17, 2010

Treasury announcements/economy

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