What Government expenditure would you cut do you think?

[Wafflefudge]

Having seen quite a few posts recently which seem to be focused on disability spending being unaffordable and needing to be cut it has prompted me to think about what could actually be cut without causing issues/ knock ons that would be more costly long term.
I think perhaps for people who aren't disabled or with disabled children they see this as an easy cut. But we can of course all think of cuts that wouldn't directly or immediately affect us.
I personally dont think any cuts are particularly easy or straightforward though.
Off the top of my head I'd maybe cut libraries as they've put such short hours in place that they are barely useable anyway. Or perhaps maximise making money from them. But recognise this would be a drop in the ocean of public expenditure.
Id be interested in others opinions on where cuts might work. I'm sure answers will vary considerably depending on personal circumstances

I’d agree with this . I work for the LA and we pay our binmen £12.70 ph or we pay an agency £25 ph to supply the staff. Agency pays £12.70 too.

It sounds like it should be a massive saving to bring it in house but it’s not. Training and P.P.E. and pensions are the biggest costs for new starts. Also getting rid of people who don’t turn up/ are always late/ stoned/ drunk is a PITA even for probationers. Agency is brutal as zero hour contracts you get a text to say don’t come in tomorrow and a p45 emailed out.

MPs are paid well enough not to need subsidies, ditto members of the House of Lords. Former PMs are generously pensioned off, way in excess of other civil service pensions.

Local authorities haemorrhage tax payers money hiring contractors for everything, from short contracts to head up 'management of change' projects, with individuals billing shocking amounts per day, as well as commissioning out large cleaning and building maintenance contracts, schools' catering and social care contracts.

Schools' budgets are shot and many desperately require further funding: local authorities in debt have been bailed out by the government only for the costs to soon mount again. They pay thousands to agencies for both short and long-term contracts for supply teaching and support staff. Huge cost are, quite rightly, ploughed into SEN but savings could be made by making schools more inclusive and welcoming of children with learning differences and disabilities and creating the necessary quality alternative learning provision facilities locally as sending children and young people out of county using private transport companies is eye-wateringly expensive.

True about the foreign aid. Where we step out, China steps in. Do we really want the rest of the world to look towards and ally themselves with them?

Well said.

The pp about privatisation as a false economy nailed it too. Everything has been plundered, hollowed out for a quick buck. Easy to dismantle, hard to rebuild.

Scrap the remaining two tier local authorities and create a few unitary councils - fewer senior staff and councillors to fund, lower overheads such as IT system costs, frees up the financial reserves that individual councils are holding, lower central services and building costs, etc, etc. And more efficient prioritising of available resources.

Re charging for missed appointments- would we send a bill, then a reminder, then a final notice then take them to court for non payment? Surely it would cost more than it would bring in?

Severe cuts should have been made years ago, we are over 2 trillion in debt and debt interest more than education budget. I read the country will go bankrupt in a few years ie won't be able to service debt. So much is wasted by the incompetents in charge- I would start with the 6 million on out of work benefits - noone able bodied should be getting paid for nothing. Either time limit benefits or make them conditional on working in the community (eg picking up all the litter etc). I know this would involve initially paying people to supervise etc but would eventually save tons of money. And scrap the House of Lords, reduce quangos and reduce non front line jobs in the civil serv ice/NHS etc. And stop giving our money to charities.

Stop subsided lunches, bar and transport across all sectors.

No second houses gor MPs who are less than 90 minutes by train from Westminster.

Stop right to buy and plough the money into good quality social housing.
Bring in rent controls in the private sector.

Council tax should be paid on all houses even if empty.
Landlords should pay council tax on student accommodation.
Extra council tax on second homes.

Graduates should pay off their student loans before emigrating.
Especially, medical staff whose education has been highly subsidised.

Reduce lobbyists, contractors etc in the public sector.

Stop rebanding in the public sector.

No more public money spent on diversity day, pride,l vetrans day , or other such things until councils can balance their books.

The royals should pay the full cost for their own security not the tax payers.
They should all pay tax.

Stop winter allowances and pension credits being paid to those who live overseas.

We could be like Americans and charge tax on earnings of citizens overseas

Before I started looking at what could be cut or seriously scaled back I'd be looking at the sheer waste there is in terms of meetings, overbanding and beyond nonsensical long winded illogical procurement. And that's just in the NHS.

Although I'd happily wave goodbye to all those perks and expenses MPs get and stop the nepotism while we're at it.

Unpopular opinion but public sector pensions are obscene and cost the taxpayer around £60 billion a year. I think they should be brought to the same levels as private sector. It’s not right that the taxpayer stumps up 20% of an employee’s salary while they’re only putting in 4% or some paltry amount themselves.

The Royals are a vast expense. They are certainly wealthy enough to pay for themselves, and to pay for their own security.

Severe cuts should have been made years ago, we are over 2 trillion in debt

We're seeing the consequences today of decades of false economy severe cuts/austerity.

Aside from the enormous harm done to individuals and society, senior economists warned about austerity - both at the time and after - about how it would and has increased the debt. Because, false economy.

Either time limit benefits or make them conditional on working in the community (eg picking up all the litter etc

So you want to cost the economy more and increase unemployment (as well as condoning exploitation)? If there's a job (litter picking or whatever) the employer should pay a proper wage, not have the taxpayer fund it through benefits.

Redundancies would shoot up and there'd be fewer job vacancies - because unscrupulous employers would simply get the taxpayer to fund jobs. If a job is available, pay a proper wage.

That said there are some things that need to be addressed to help people get jobs. There's a need to tackle employer age, disability, and career gap discrimination.

Members of the LGPS pay a min of 5.5% up to 12.5% for the highest earners. They aren't putting a mere 4% of earnings in.

After 40 years of nursing (without a break) my 'obscene ' pension is just under 1k a month.

The general opinion of public sector pensions makes me livid.

@KnittedCardi

Most govt departments have already cut staff. I left a govt dept May last year along with about 800 others in my dept alone

This is an interesting report. It's from America, which has it's own problems today, and was published back in 2012 but it makes some good observations about the false economy (and harm to individuals) of austerity.

As it might be a TL/DR for some, I've copy pasted the beginning.

Many governments in Europe, either of their own volition or at the behest of the international financial institutions, have adopted stringent austerity policies in response to the financial crisis. By contrast, the USA launched a financial stimulus.

The results of these experiments are now clear: the American economy is growing and those European countries adopting austerity, including the UK, Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain, are stagnating and struggling to repay rising debts.

An initial recovery in the UK was halted once austerity measures hit.

However, austerity has been not only an economic failure, but also a health failure, with increasing numbers of suicides and, where cuts in health budgets are being imposed, increasing numbers of people being unable to access care

And of course when people can't access timely and effective care (not only health, but also social care, decent housing, DV support, non-punitive benefits system, well-run child maintenance system, job education and training opportunities) they end up more unwell, less able to work - and in need of more expensive and more long-term financial, health, and other care and support.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4952125/

Not all public sector employees are local government. NHS employer contributions are 23.7%. My DD works in the finance dept of a school. The pension contributions for the SMT are a huge percentage of the school’s whole budget, and are more than the contributions for the rest of the school combined. Every penny of that comes from taxes.

A lot of these schemes are unfunded. So the contributions don't actually get set aside for the employee in a pot like in a private pension. The money just goes to the treasury general pot and a different treasury pot pays out the current retirees.

You'd end up with a period of time where it would cost more as the existing pension liabilities would still have to be paid from the treasury, but the employee would have to have an actual contribution for thier pot even though that would be smaller and eventually be cheaper.

Foreign aid until we don't have a housing and health crisis. Subsidised MPs dining rooms and crazy expenses.

The NHS pension scheme ran something like a £4bn excess last year. ie the current contributors paid in £4bn more than the current beneficiaries were paid out. These schemes aren't the money pit for government that people seem to think they are

I also think public sector pensions are unsustainable.

Another good article about the false economy of austerity (published in America in 2013 but still very relevant for the UK today).

Some excerpts for TL/DR:

Yesterday, I argued that U.S. fiscal policy is heading in the wrong direction, toward the economics of austerity. If you want to know where this path can lead, look across the Atlantic to poor old Blighty.

For almost three years now, since the election of a Conservative-Liberal coalition, the British government has been slashing government programs and raising taxes, supposedly to reduce a big budget deficit.

As I’ve written previously, the results have been pretty disastrous—both for ordinary Britons and for the public finances.

Just how disastrous was made clear yesterday by a new report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, a London-based think tank that is widely regarded as independent and nonpartisan.

In the “Green Budget,” its lengthy and detailed annual review of the U.K.’s finances, the I.F.S. pointed out that the budget deficit, far from being eliminated, was still so large that next year the Chancellor, George Osborne, will have to borrow about sixty-five billion pounds more than he had anticipated.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/u-k-lesson-austerity-leads-to-more-debt

Fizzy pineapple, I love your ideas. Could I add demolish the House of Lords and replace it with a much smaller senate? I would also abolish the monarchy. And for anyone who says, but they are great for tourism; I ask, which foreign countries have you visited to see their royal family? And please don't start digging up the empire/commonwealth stuff because we really need to move on from the horrors of how the British have treated people in other lands in years go by.

MP's salaries.

Oh so taking nurses etc from the NHS and having them work in private sector is how we save money is it?
why not cut their wages, holidays and maternity pay too, well we are about?

Pensions aren't a lose lose, the money is spent in local communities, don't need benefits & in later life can pay for their own care.

Of course taking back in house saves money, you don't have to fund that companies profit, its duplicate HR/IT/Par roll/admin/board directors.

Do you want your taxes going to Houston or to local services here in the UK ?