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Jeremy Heywood: Cuts may last until 2020 | Jeremy Heywood: Cuts may last until 2020 |
(about 21 hours later) | |
Spending cuts could continue for another eight years, the Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has said. | |
The top civil servant made the comments at an event at the Institute for Government mostly attended by civil servants. | |
He was discussing the coalition's civil service reform plan. | He was discussing the coalition's civil service reform plan. |
The government has already announced the austerity programme would continue beyond the next election. | The government has already announced the austerity programme would continue beyond the next election. |
But the suggestion of a time scale going beyond 2017 has not been talked about openly, says BBC political correspondent Ian Watson. | |
The Cabinet Office said: "Jeremy was simply saying that financial pressure would continue into the next parliament." | |
On Tuesday, Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude announced a package of reforms to the civil service, which included plans to make it easier to sack under-performing staff members. | On Tuesday, Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude announced a package of reforms to the civil service, which included plans to make it easier to sack under-performing staff members. |
Mr Maude said he wanted to see the civil service operate more like a business, with a tougher appraisal system, increased accountability and a more entrepreneurial culture. | Mr Maude said he wanted to see the civil service operate more like a business, with a tougher appraisal system, increased accountability and a more entrepreneurial culture. |
The planned changes come against a backdrop of deep cuts and job losses across Whitehall. | The planned changes come against a backdrop of deep cuts and job losses across Whitehall. |
Sir Jeremy - who, along with head of the civil service Sir Bob Keepsake, will lead the implementation of the reform plan - told an audience at href="http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/civil-service-reform-0" >the Institute for Government the public sector was only 25% through its fiscal adjustment. | |
"That's a big adjustment, because we had a big starting point but we've got a massive amount still to do. | |
"We're probably in year two, or year three of a seven, eight, maybe a 10-year programme. That gives you some sense of the size of the fiscal public service reform challenge facing pretty much every department in Whitehall," he said. | |
Sir Jeremy told the audience there were a number of challenges on the economy that would each, in "normal" times, be the main preoccupation of any government. | |
He said reforming the House of Lords was going to be "immensely problematic" and dealing with the results of Lord Justice Lesson's inquiry into freedom of the press would be a "massive hot potato for any government to have landed in its lap". | |
In addition, the need to campaign to maintain the integrity of the UK was "going to take a huge amount of the time of the Cabinet Office, the prime minister, the deputy prime minister over the next 18 months", he said. | |
He concluded: "Whether you look at the economic challenge, the fiscal challenge, the public service challenge, the constitutional reform challenge we are beset with enormous issues and any one of those I have mentioned would be the dominant theme of most normal five year parliaments. | |
"We've got them all at the same time." |