Abstract
The present system of planning public expenditure is a conscious attempt to break away from the framework inherited by the Conservative administration in 1979. The first question to address is, therefore, how the present system came about. While the current planning mechanism is a radical departure from the old one, it is not possible to understand it outside the context of its antecedents. Thus, this chapter begins with a broad historical overview of public expenditure planning in the UK.
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Notes and References
As the next section of this chapter is entirely devoted to the key documents in the history of public expenditure planning during 1961–1982 no source references will be cited in this overview.
See the Glossary entry under Borrowing from Money Markets. The point was that planning was in terms of constant prices unaffected by, and abstracting from, actual inflation. However, day-to-day spending had to be in cash terms. In periods of rapidly rising prices not having an explicit system taking into account cash demands meant that a most important problem in the practical management of public spending was dealt with, as it were, off-stage.
Broadly speaking, those programmes where spending was not demand-led and where Parliamentary approval for Estimates was required (neither National Insurance Fund spending nor local authority rent and rates come within the compass of Estimates). Examples of demand-led spending include social security benefits, agricultural support payments to the European Community, university student awards and General Practitioner payments.
See, for example, the discussion in D. Heald, Public Expenditure (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983), p. 194.
For an extended technical description of cash limits see A. Likierman, Cash Limits and External Financing Limits (London: HMSO, 1981) Civil Service College Handbook, no. 22.
Her Majesty’s Treasury, Economic Progress Report, November 1981, no. 139, p. 2.
For a more elaborate and technical description see Cmnd. 8494, 1982, vol II, p. 103. The actual cash plans in each of the three years were additionally adjusted for a higher than expected police pay settlement in September 1981.
Her Majesty’s Treasury, Economic Progress Report, March 1981; see also Her Majesty’s Treasury, Financial Statement and Budget Report, March 1981.
S. Lewis and A. Harrison, ‘How Real are Real Terms Resources?’, Public Money, September 1983, p. 54.
D. Heald, Public Expenditure (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983), p. 196.
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© 1987 Grahame Walshe
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Walshe, G. (1987). From Plowden to Cash Planning. In: Planning Public Spending in the UK. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18606-8_2
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