How would you cut spending?

[ninna]

In view of the huge amount of money we have to borrow every month, I would presume that most people would agree that we need to make savings? If you don't agree, it would be interesting to hear why. If you do agree, how do you think we ought to do it?

the NHS needs totally overhauling......stop fooling themselves with over booking clinics just to meet the 18 week deadlines for referrals. Its a joke ,after waiting more than 2 hours and then a further 7 patients to be seen before my son ( and at one every half hour) we would have been their all evening. Re booked it for 3 weeks time but of course the NHS met its targets didnt it HO HO.)

Councils should stop replacing smashed galss bus stops with more glass. Replace with the unbreakable metal so that it costs the tax payer less money.

Child Trust fund. Don't know how much it costs but excluding the additional payment at 7yrs for low income families I guess £6-7million a year. Its both a lot of money and a drop in the ocean. I suspect a lot of it will literaly be pissed up the wall.

Arse covering in the NHS costs a lot but I don't know how you could stop it really.

Trident. I din't think its much of a deterent against nutters and I'll eat my hat if it ever gets used. We would be better off having a foreign policy that didn't piss people off so much.

stop research into cosmetics,detergents,shampoos etc....we have enough on the market. why spemd more money on that research and killing lots of animals.

Agree with no new nuclear deterrent.
Cap all MPs expenses (in line with their duties)
Cap all Councillors expenses (the Mayor and Deputy can have more but the rest should be the same)

Ditch trident now.

It's easy to talk about obvious stuff - ID cards for most, Trident for many (though if you look into it, the savings in both cases are tiny). Easy to say you would cut quangos, middle management, five-a-day coordinators, and waste. Much harder to come up with the difficult cuts.

Here is my list of painful cuts.

I would hold freeze public sector pay for this year, and hold it down to a 1 or 2 % increase the year after. The private sector has taken the hit so far; the public sector needs to share the pain. This is a big cut.

I would also stop all new public final salary pension schemes, and limit public pensions to about £40000 a year (with top ups available via defined contributions if desired).

I would cut the police force by about 10% over the next 5 years - through natural churn as much as possible. Police numbers aren't the bottleneck any more - it is much more police time.

I would cut all new roadbuilding programmes. I would allow private companies to finance new roads, with the rights to charge tolls on them for 40 years.

I would make much of SureStart means tested. Everyone should be able to continue full access, but there should be more co-payment, like with prescription charges at the moment.

I would scrap the child trust fund, and means test tax credits.

I would cut the school and hospital capital budgets by about 25%. Most of the buildings are in good condition.

The really depressing thing is that all the stuff I've mentioned would only go a miniscule way towards filling the annual deficit.

We're in for a really crap few years.

Deffo ditch trident - what a total waste of money.

I'd also go for the total overhaul of the NHS which is in seriously bad shape.

I would scrap tax credits and re-work the tax system. Taking tax from people just to give it back is ludicrous.

I would invest serious money in green tech r&d (I realise this is not exactly cutting spending, but it should pay dividends in a few years).

Deffo cap MP's pay and expenses and get shot of an awful lot of think tanks and quangos. The state is amazingly bloated atm so there are savings to be made across the public sector. Public sector pensions are a bloody joke so I would sort that out too.

Oh, and I would ensure that the utterly appalling and repulsive Peter Mandleson is never again paid a penny of public money (and stripped of his title if I could manage it).

problem is with just the benefits thing is they're going to need to spend to make sure the childcare is available

yes - but the problem is in that in many areas childcare is very hard to find (totally ignoring the cost issue), if you end up having to work early mornings or evenings some areas it's nigh on impossible unless you have friends or family to help out.

No more final salary pensions for new public workers. It's not affordable.

No more Child Trust Fund or Health in Pregnancy grants.

Students pay council tax. They use services, too.

No more paying kids to stay in school till they're 18.

Brave post Longfingernails - do you work for the IMF?
Mjinhiding - another brave post, awaiting kick off!

I was watching a politics show on STV last night and apparently the biggest part of public spend goes on benefits and pensions.

It's going to have to be reigned in, somehow or another.

ermm where did I say anything was wrong with it

I said it only works if you have family and friends available to help

well I don't think everyone is a potential pervert just have no family close (not that I want them close tbh rather prefer it this way) and although I have a few friends none are in the position to be able to help out with "out of hours" childcare.

and tbh - if unless they do something about wages/cost of housing cutting the benefits/limiting them won't help. As the figures for IS and JSA are pretty low compared to that of state pensions, ESA, and of course housing benefit........housing benefit is paid to those who work as well as those who don't. This figure for housing benefit and council tax benefit was predicted to rise this tax year, and again next tax year...and forcing people out to work isn't going to change that.

In Australia, one of the political leaders is suggesting that there should be no dole for those able to work under the age of 30. Instead, they should be put to work in the areas where personnel are required. An interesting policy, not sure it would be workable - but it would reduce benefit payments.

Re. childcare - it used to be much simpler and more affordable because childminders weren't restricted to the low numbers they are now, they didn't have all the checks they do now and people used to have things like babysitting clubs where payment was in babysitting vouchers (so a reciprocal arrangement between a group of mums)

I have a radical proposal that is probably very off beat but here goes - I think that young mums who have babies and go on benefits because they can't afford to work, should be grouped in 4s or 5s and take it in turns to do group babysitting, while the others do part time work. Cuts childcare costs and reduces benefits. Could be interesting setting it up though! I also think they could live in combined accommodation, again 4 or 5 mum & child units to a building (individual units within a communal building type thing) to facilitate the childcare situation. Haven't thought it through completely as you can see but it's an idea.

mjinhiding - people were saying exactly the same things about single mothers back in these 'bad old days' of which you speak, right in the middle of a huge era of Conservative government. Hard to link more than ten years ago! found some examples in a googlebook

But I'm sure you must remember, if you were a single mum back then?

And it was not the government that started the paedo-hysteria, it was the tabloid press, and all this vetting and barring stuff is a knee-jerk response to that...

Expat you are right.

Of total 2008/9 spend - 27% social security, 18% NHS and 13% on education. Also 14% on debt interest payment!!