What do you think will be announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review on the 20th?

[Deleted User]

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

They're going to kill the first born male child in every household

retrospectively?

antrobus

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

They're going to kill the first born male child in every household

So that's why Labour plumped for Ed rather than David. I knew there was a reason.

Blacklight

What do you think will be announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review on the 20th?

A rise in central government and local council spending.

Up to a 25% cut in real terms over 4 years has been announced.

If budgets rise by inflation (lets take that at 3%), plus say 3% growth in spending year on year:

Year 1 = 106.0%
Year 2 = 112.4%
Year 3 = 119.1%
Year 4 = 126.2%

Lets take off 25%

Year 4 = 101.2%
Year 3 = 100.9%
Year 2 = 100.6%
Year 1 = 100.3%

Spending is still increasing at 0.3% year on year.

Hardly the 'cut' the BBC would have people believe.

Some people crossing their fingers for a 25% reduction in budgets will be very surprised when they find out what 'up to a 25% cut in real terms over 4 years' actually means.

misskool

daveyjp wrote: »

60% cut to University budgets and max tuition fee raised to £10,000 per annum.

depends how much they are listening to Lord Browne
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=413806&c=1

Aberdeenangarse

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

They're going to kill the first born male child in every household

Only if they vote Labour

mbga9pgf

madnessofBruno wrote: »

Our forces will take a huge hit, including the sale of MOD land.
The RAF will survive this time, however the future is precarious.

Single command for 3 services, rather the three we have currently, all co-located.

Navy will get its carriers, and the RAF will get F35A, not B.

Cuts to:

Challenger MBT
MLRS
Type 42
Attack subs
Auxilliary fleet
reduced order of type 45
Nimrod
Sentry AEW
The german batallions 2015
Tornado and/or harrier for early retirement.

Changes to future pensions provisions and an increase of the 7% equivalent "personal contribution" to 10% via the X factor. This could be negated by freezing pay for a year or two longer on top of the 2 years already announced.

All speculative, though it kind of makes sense from the post cold war standpoint.

As for the rest, local councils will take the biggest hammering. Which is great, as it means cheaper council tax in the distant future, which is something to rejoice.

Benefits to get a massive further hammering of around 8 billion.

Procurement and management to take a hammering (police uniforms, telecoms, IT supply will all be COTS and off the cheapest bidder).

I will give you an example here. If I need a hotel room in the public sector, and can find one I am happy with, cheaper than the "publically sourced" one I cant book it, unless its on the "approved list". Nonsense. If its cheaper and someone wants to stay there, let them stay. Same with IT procurement. If it doesnt come from the approved supplier, you cant get it, despite items often costing far inexcess of what you would pay at Ikea for office furniture, or say staples for IT.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Privatisation of everything including the Buckingham Palace which will be turned into a Super Casino.


Gambilng Tax to 99.9%

Rosie75

misskool wrote: »

depends how much they are listening to Lord Browne
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=413806&c=1

The rumours in the higher education sector are that the government are going to cut the teaching grant (ie. the money paid to universities to teach students) by 75%. This effectively means they've already decided to implement Browne's recommendation to remove the cap on fees.

I'd love to know what qualifies the former CEO of BP (particularly one with a controversial record) to set the agenda for higher education in this county. The constitution of the Review is a disgrace - but given that it was set up by the last government, and that the conculsion was inevitable once the nature of the panel was revealed, I can't see that a Labour government would have refused to go along with its findings.

gauly

Rosie75 wrote: »

The rumours in the higher education sector are that the government are going to cut the teaching grant (ie. the money paid to universities to teach students) by 75%. This effectively means they've already decided to implement Browne's recommendation to remove the cap on fees.

I'd love to know what qualifies the former CEO of BP (particularly one with a controversial record) to set the agenda for higher education in this county. The constitution of the Review is a disgrace - but given that it was set up by the last government, and that the conculsion was inevitable once the nature of the panel was revealed, I can't see that a Labour government would have refused to go along with its findings.

The problem is, they might make the cuts (though 75% on teaching grants is enormous!!) but will they increase the fees? I can't see any way of getting a student fee increase through parliament given the Lib-Dems signed a pledge to get rid of fees altogether - many back bench Lib-Dems will vote against the governement. Pretty safe bet Labour will vote against fee increases too. It's going to leave universities as a total funding disaster area. Brilliant idea when everywhere else in the world is increasing university funding - the Tories must know something they don't...

Rosie75

gauly wrote: »

The problem is, they might make the cuts (though 75% on teaching grants is enormous!!) but will they increase the fees? I can't see any way of getting a student fee increase through parliament given the Lib-Dems signed a pledge to get rid of fees altogether - many back bench Lib-Dems will vote against the governement. Pretty safe bet Labour will vote against fee increases too. It's going to leave universities as a total funding disaster area. Brilliant idea when everywhere else in the world is increasing university funding - the Tories must know something they don't...

As I see it, the government will be presenting parliament with a fait accompli. Once they have said that they will decimate the teaching grant - as it looks likely they will - the choice will be between charging students fees or letting the entire higher education system collapse. I suspect that many Lib-Dems will abstain from the vote, in any case, while those who have their noses in the ministerial trough will vote for an increase in fees. I'm pretty sure that if Labour were still in government, they'd be pushing this through - the writing was on the wall when they appointed someone of Browne's background to undertake this review. Of course, now they're in opposition they'll claim that they were against removing the cap on fees all along.