Publications Publications
We produce a wide range of publications from research reports to policy briefings, as well as our members' magazine, Clearway, and a monthly Policy Round-Up. Our Handy Guides provide practical information covering topics such as LSPs, Planning and local government. All our publications are designed to provide accessible and relevant information to help you get to the heart of what matters.
Don't know your Handy Guide from your Briefing? Read our explanation of what our different publications are.
Overview
The Chancellor announced that cuts to public spending totalling £81bn over the next four years to achieve their target of eliminating the structural deficit by 2015. On average government departments' budgets have been reduced by 19% (less than the 25% that had been expected), making the cuts the biggest seen since 1973. However there is significant variation across budgets, ranging from a 51% cut at Communities and Local Government to an increase of 37% for international aid. Cuts of £7bn to the welfare budget were announced, on top of the £11bn announced in the emergency Budget in June.
The retirement age will rise to 66 from 2020, six years earlier than previously planned. And the government expects almost 500,000 jobs will be lost in the public sector as a result of the Spending Review. The impact of the cuts, according to the Treasury's figures, will affect the poorest 10% of households more than any other group apart from the richest 10% of the population.
As is the way with these things nowadays, Ministers have spent the last few weeks raising (and lowering) expectations of what the Spending Review (SR) might bring. And since the emergency budget back in June we've known what the overall numbers were going to be. So, inevitably, there was a fair amount that we already knew (or expected) in the Chancellor's statement. However, in an attempt (no doubt carefully constructed) to exceed people's dire expectations, the Chancellor took some delight in announcing that the overall average cuts to Departmental spending was 19% (rather than that 25% that had been mooted).
On 14th October a consultation was launched by Cabinet Office Ministers, Francis Maude and Nick Hurd, on ways to strengthen the support available to frontline voluntary and community groups (VCS). The consultation suggests some ways that the government think improvements could be made that would support the delivery of the Big Society and seeks feedback to 10 questions that they ask. Responses to the consultation will be used to inform the government's priorities for supporting civil society groups and to develop an Equalities Impact Assessment.
The Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, outlined the Government's plans for the National Citizens Service (NCS) in August . The NCS, a new volunteering scheme for teenagers, will have 10,000 places available for 16-year-olds when it launches its pilots in 2011 with the roll out expected to provide 30,000 places in 2012.
Watching the development of proposals to form new Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) may have been mildly entertaining as a tale of political intrigue, jockeying and power struggles, but it does little to instil confidence in the future. Regardless of whether the final figure of LEPs that are approved is 22 (as Local Government Chronicle's Alister Hayman suggests) or just two, these new entities - tasked with delivering economic development - are unlikely to deliver what's needed from the outset.
briefing public sector mutuals 10 2010
- January 2011
Introduction
On the 12th of August 2010 the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude announced the first-wave of pathfinder mutuals. These will be run by public sector staff that want to take control of their service and explore the possibility of these pathfinders becoming mutuals.
The latest edition of our online magazine, Clearway, looks at the issue of Social Finance. 