THE LIB DEM PLAN FOR SLIMMING GOVERNMENT
We will cut the excessive number of government departments, and reduce the unnecessary number of government ministers - cutting 40 from the current total of 112. We will also move government bureaucracy out of London, starting with investigating further the possibility of moving the Treasury to Liverpool. There would be savings on office rents, whilst wealth and jobs are spread more equally through the UK, ending Britain's over-centralisation.
Liberal Democrats have always been open and honest about how we will pay for our policies. At the last three general elections, we set out full details of how much our policies would cost and how we would pay for them - none of the other parties did this. Since Labour have now put up taxes, we don't need to raise taxes for most of our proposals - we have detailed plans to fund them by savings in current budgets. That will involve switching around £5 billion from lower priority programmes and unnecessary bureaucracy to our priorities.
Some of the lower priority programmes we would cut include:
- Scrapping the Chancellor's Child Trust Fund and using the money for children's early years education and support.
- Not introducing ID cards, and spending the money instead on increasing the number of police on our streets and providing them with the latest technology to make them more efficient.
- Scrapping the third tranche of the Eurofighter programme.
Additionally we would save money by adopting a more open market and competitive procurement process in areas such as defence, scrapping the residual, protectionist rules. We would transfer agencies like the Royal Mint into the private sector and reduce subsidies to the Export Credit Guarantee Department and British Trade International.
We fully support the Government's own public sector Efficiency Review - the Gershon review. But in many areas we would go further.
One crucial way in which central government should do less is by ending its insistence on controlling everything from the centre, obsessed with targets that are insensitive to local conditions. Micro-management from Whitehall is inefficient and ineffective. The Treasury is particularly guilty of this.
Our overall approach to government including radical decentralisation would save money as well as improve delivery.
We would cut the number of ministries and ministers. We have suggested cutting out four departments and over 40 ministers.
We would scrap the DTI. This is not a cosmetic change. The scope of the DTI will be significantly cut back with remaining functions moved to other Government departments. We will make deep cuts in the administration and also in various industrial support schemes of the DTI. This includes significant cut backs in industrial subsidies. Although we are making large cuts in total DTI spending, 2009-10 spending on DTI related activities will still be higher in real terms than when Labour came to power in 1997. This still gives scope for priority programmes like the rural Post Office network. Business will continue to have a voice at the heart of Government in the form of a Minister for Business. Science research funding for universities will be routed through the Department for Education and protected. Other areas that the DTI currently has responsibility for will be devolved to Regional Development Agencies. It is inevitable that some recipients of DTI subsidies will be concerned at their abolition, but we are unconvinced that current programmes represent the best use of taxpayers' money: a view shared by many in business.
We would abolish the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in full, distributing functions to more appropriate departments and to local government where appropriate. Annual spend on Area Based Initiatives will be £1.5 billion in 2005-6. These funds have grown hugely and often overlap and duplicate each other. For instance there are over 100 such initiatives in Cornwall alone - each requiring its own bureaucracy, plus the costs of coordination - even when their work is useful. We want to free councils to take their own decisions about local programmes and projects, with more local financial freedoms. We will reduce the extent of central inspection and micro-management. There is at present far too much central intervention and interference in local government.
We would hold a cull of quangos (public bodies run at arms-length from government). For instance we would have a single education and skills organisation reducing duplication in learning and skills by integrating the Learning and Skills Council with the Higher Education Funding Council and Regional Development Agencies. With significant decentralisation we would be able to abolish many quangos, devolving their powers to local government.
There are major savings that can be made in a number of other government departments. As the Haskins Report has identified, DEFRA is a bloated, inefficient government department. Many of its 13,000 plus civil servants duplicate and augment the bureaucratic structures of the European Common Agricultural Policy. Significant cuts can be made in both programmes and staff.
We would cut back centralised targets and controls in the Department of Health. By reducing means-testing we would enable savings to be made in budgets in the Department of Work and Pensions. And our plans to replace council tax with a fair local income tax, based on ability to pay, would deliver net savings of around £1.4 billion (as estimated by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance Accountants) over a parliament because it could be run as part of the existing income tax collection system and there would be no need for the bureaucratic system of council tax benefit.
We would decentralise government by relocating government - not just back office staff but policy staff too. The current civil service assumption that it is only possible to employ skilled people in London is ridiculous. Universities survive perfectly well outside the south east - so should government ministries.
For example, why does the Treasury need 1200 civil servants in London occupying 230,470 square meters of very valuable central London office space? Using the latest technology for teleconferencing, desk-based video-conferencing, e-mail, fax and mobile communications, there is simply no need for everyone to work in the same place any longer. A small group who advise ministers can stay in London; the rest can go.
Relocating other civil service departments could generate similar significant savings across the board. Up to £17.5 million is also being lost every year simply because Government offices are lying empty in the principle cities of the UK. Relocating some government departments into these vacant offices out of London while renting out central London properties would result in greater savings.
Our plans are realistic and achievable, unlike those put forward by the Conservatives. The Tories claim they could increase spending on health, education, policing, international development and defence, cut taxes and correct the budget deficit, simply by removing waste in the public sector. People don't believe them, and rightly so. You can't get something for nothing. The Conservatives could not afford their plans without introducing serious cuts to our public services.
The Liberal Democrats are prepared to make the tough choices necessary to redirect spending to our priority programmes. Among the investments these savings will allow us to make are boosting the pensions of older pensioners, investing more in children's early years, and putting more police on the streets.
