How to cut government spending?

Here's a simple idea.  Require every Whitehall department - and each associated quango - to have its budget annually ratified by the relevant House of Commons select committee.  No approval, no money.

"You mean having those we elect, in the legislature, control government spending, like they do in other countries, and used to do here?  You mean forcing officials to justify where the money goes?".  Yes.

At present, forget all the theory about Parliament controlling the money; it's Whitehall officials that decide.  Having the executive decide how much money the executive spends means they spend more money. 

It might also give our MPs something useful to do.

Posted on 25 April 2009 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

Fantastic idea,

I also think that the accounts should be published so that the public can see what their tax money is spent on by quangos.

There are currently 827 quangos in operation costing £101 Billion

Posted on 25 April 2009 10:37 by paul

In my book, getting rid of the quangos would be the best way forward.

Posted on 25 April 2009 11:07 by Shirl Smith

Exactly the system this country requires. Most of the public would be surprised this doesn't happen anyway. Though I'm sure it wouldn't be popular by those who could change the system in this way - the politicians.

Posted on 25 April 2009 11:22 by Michael Heaver

Good one Mr Carswell.

Can we get you cloned?

Posted on 25 April 2009 11:27 by Plato

i like the picture of the piggy, did you pick this cos it would lead to pork barrel politics?

Posted on 25 April 2009 11:43 by Iain Menzies

I've seen quotes where its said that you could reduce the size of the Civil Service by 50% without a reduction in efficiency. (Although as an ex-Civil Servant I think this is a little low) So why not, starting at the top, sack each alternate level of management?

The vast majority use the number of meetings they go to as a metric of how efficiently they use their time so you could probably lose the entire 1st Division and no-one would notice.

Posted on 25 April 2009 11:51 by JohnW

Superb idea!

lets hope it gains traction with the next Government

Posted on 25 April 2009 11:56 by Mr Jones

excelent idea, that could be a serious winner in the election manifesto. elected officials saying yay or nay. since you guys are doing 80% less work now since the eu is doing your job, that should be plenty of time to fit it in!

Posted on 25 April 2009 12:14 by pat mcgroin

Good idea ! Didn't Saint Margaret attempt something of the kind ?
Further, why not reward them proportionately to the extent they spend BELOW their budget with penalties for over-spend ? At the moment, if they don't spend all their budget, it tends to be reduced correspondingly the next year !

Posted on 25 April 2009 14:40 by Stuart

I suspect that this would be quite a constitutional innovation, but that's no reason not to do it. Richard North gives examples of why Parliamentary budgetary approval is needed in his 'Just Imagine' blog on EU Referendum.

Posted on 25 April 2009 18:40 by Mark Demmen

Here's an even simpler idea - why don't we get rid of the lot? Government, quangos, MPs, the lot.

Posted on 25 April 2009 22:12 by Mark Forster

Connecting the logo on top and Mark Forster's comment - isn't Mexican swine flu heading this way?

Posted on 26 April 2009 10:16 by Disputin

If this years government overspend is circa $150 billion, and we could save £101 billion, by closing down all the quangos. It's not rocket science.

Posted on 27 April 2009 22:24 by Eddy

In the dire straits in which UK plc finds itself, and the £175bn overspend, we should not budget or allow any government dept to spend a penny more than in this financial year; in other words forget inflationary increases.
Simple to understand...simple to monitor.

Posted on 29 April 2009 23:10 by THE ESSEX BOYS

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