London — Nearly half a million public sector workers in Britain are to lose their jobs as the government plans to reduce more than 80 billion pounds in public spending in the next four years, the biggest cut since the Second World War.
Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, unwittingly disclosed the full scale of the expected redundancies when he was photographed Monday reading confidential briefing papers, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The “restricted” documents said: “The OBRs (Office for Budget Responsibility) budget forecast was for a reduction in public sector workforce numbers of 490,000 by 2014-15.
“This is likely to change as a result of settlements agreed in the Spending Review but government expects the OBRs November forecast to be broadly in line with its budget forecast. It will be for each public sector employer to determine the workforce implications of spending settlements.”
Tens of thousands of government officials will be offered redundancy in the coming weeks as the government plans to cut more than 80 billion pounds in public spending over the next four years, the documents said.
Public sector workers will also have a two-year pay freeze and be told that they face increased pension contributions from next year.
Chancellor George Osborne will announce the outcome of the governments Comprehensive Spending Review Wednesday.
The Telegraph also revealed that ministers will announce more than 13 billion pounds in welfare cuts. In total, including cuts announced in the emergency budget, the welfare bill will be reduced by about 25 billion pounds in the next four years.
Under the review plan, every government department – except health and international development – has to undertake budget cuts of up to 40 percent by 2015. It is thought that the budgets of the Home Office and Justice Department will be particularly hard hit.
The NY Times has an article that goes into more detail about the debt restructuring plan the new British government is undertaking.
Their civil service has a work force of around 1.5 million people and 490,000 of those will be let go over 4 years. thats a reduction of 1/3.
Why isnt the Bahamian government taking similar steps rather than just borrowing, borrowing, borrowing?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/world/europe/21britain.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Every comedian knows that timing is everything but apparently Ingraham – the Master Joker that he is – forgot that.
The British government will undergo PLANNED reductions to the Civil Service (please note the time line in the article). NO SENSIBLE PERSON IN THE BAHAMAS HAS A PROBLEM WITH THE ZNS REDUCTION, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS A PROBLEM WITH THE WAY IT WAS DONE!
Ingraham dealt with ZNS stupidly as they dealt with any number of issues and he and his government SHOULD pay the ultimate price!
Your right. thats why i said what i said about real leadership.
I am convinced that the PM had an opportunity during this recession to fix the civil service once and for all, but was to afraid to do so.
The biggest drain on the treasury is civil service salaries. rather than increase taxes on the small tax base, he could have significantly cut cost instead. Papa didnt have the courage to do that, and from the looks of it, Perry Christie dont have the guts to do it either.
The financial problems in the country are not hard to fix. I submit that most of the problems in this country can be solved if we had real men and women in parliament whose desire was to fix problems and not put bandages on them.
well, well, how “heartless” is that. I wonder if they ga pay them extra like our government did with ZNS? Not likely.
I guess we’re not the only ones cutting government spending hey?
Straight talk, the British government arent the only ones. Governments around the world have been cutting back for the last 3 years. The Bahamanian government is late to the party.
Rather than borrow all that money the last 2 years to fill holes in the budget, Papa should have brought the knife to the civil service 2 years ago.
You cant give what you dont have. Revenues are down for the first 3 months of this years budget and have been down the last 3 years. Rather than cut back, Papa borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars instead.
Now its a double wammy because the money Papa borrowed has inflated the national debt and in the end, he still ended up cutting jobs.
He should have manned up, approach the nation and tell us what has to be done. But he didnt because he was afraid of the political backlash.
Thats what happens when yo dont lead. Thats what happens when you put politics ahead of common sense. Papa didnt want to cut nobody cause he was scared of the fallout.
Now the debt will surpass 4 billion at the end of this fiscal year.
The British, like so many other countries, are cutting jobs because the only other alternative is to borrow and they dont want to do that because they are already in serious debt.
But in the Bahamas, borrowing is what our governments do. They borrow just to borrow because it is a way for them to avoid making a tough decision.
Real leaders lead and make tough decisions. The Bahamian tax payer could have been spared those increases in taxes had Papa started doing what he is doing now 2 years ago.
In tough times you either borrow or cut back. Our government choose the easy, short term fix that will be a burden to future generations.
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