WHILE councils anxiously await the full details of the coalition’s spending cuts to be announced in this autumn’s budget, those residents drawing social security benefits also wait to discover what the government has in store for them. It is now clear that the UK’s Welfare Budget is to be heavily axed – in-line with other high spending departments.
The £11 billion of cuts, announced in last week’s emergency budget, are now emerging as nothing more than a down payment on getting to grips with the previous government’s profligacy, and the strategy - adopted by both previous Tory and Labour governments - of ‘parking’ the unemployed on disability benefits (to reduce the unemployment figures) is now to be reversed.
It is estimated that one in five, currently in receipt of disability benefit, are actually fit enough to work. If the figure is true, the coalition may be able to reduce its annual social security spending by as much as £38 billion.
Meanwhile, apart from the navel gazing regarding England’s 4:1 defeat by Germany in the World Cup, this week’s news is becoming dominated by councils, up and down the country, briefing the national press on local cuts. Care charges are apparently set to rise; nursing homes are to be sold-off or closed; free travel passes and meals-on-wheels services are to be abandoned and, of course, staff are to be laid-off. It seems that even some police forces are preparing to cut their front-line presence and squarely blame the government for their decision to do so.
The stories, it should be noted, mainly come from Labour controlled councils and Labour Party politicians, which is strange given the reported intent to cut services for the elderly and vulnerable – as if there were no choice in the matter. But the fact is that choices do exist – as the private sector has admirably shown. Capital projects can be put on hold; lazy assets can be liquidated and directors can set an example by forgoing bonuses and taking a pay and pension benefits cut, like their employees, in order to preserve jobs. Moreover, the private sector was by no means as bloated and inefficient, when it undertook its own housekeeping, as the public sector finds itself now.
Editors and reporters need to be on their guard against giving air to such briefings and press releases. In particular, such printed articles should also investigate the reason why no alternatives can be found.
Controversy, of course, sells newspapers. But this summer, with its raft of impending tube and in-flight attendant strikes, leading up to the autumn budget, does not require stoking to fuel more unrest.
The public will have enough to contend with keeping their own budgets in balance, and do not need the added worry of opposition scare stories to make them even more depressed…
... (02/07/2010, Telegraph) - Francis Maud says police chief is scaremongering on cuts
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