"Recliner" wrote in message
...
"tim....." wrote:
"Recliner" wrote in message
...
Mizter T wrote:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/george-osborne-sharpens-axe-40-6111425

"Schools, health, international development and defence are protected
so
local government, Home Office, transport, environment, justice and the
courts, arts and sports will be hammered by 25% and 40% cuts in
November’s Spending Review."


http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/592816/Budget-spending-cuts-George-Osborne-welfare-Whitehall

"Councils, police, prisons, the courts and the transport network are
expected to bear the brunt of the swingeing spending reductions."


Some broader thoughts from R. Peston:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33609662

The Express headline grossly overstates the cuts. There will be cuts,
but
the 25% and 40% figures aren't those cuts; they're the menu of all
possible
cuts each department is expected to come up with. Many will be
politically
impossible, but the idea is to give the Treasury a long list of options
from which to k select. This happens after every election, and is a form
of
zero-based budgeting (ie, start with 100% cuts, and departments have to
justify everything that is added back).

"Letters will be sent to the head of every department that does not have
ringfenced funding, asking them to model two scenarios of 25% and 40% of
real-terms savings by 2019-20, the same levels of reduction requested
before the 2010 spending review."

From
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2...-clear-deficit

The idea is to force departments seriously to look at radical options,
such
as of doing business in a completely different way, or simply not doing
some things at all, rather than adopting the easy "10% cuts all round"
solution. One likely consequence is that some Departments may be
abolished
or merged. For example, on Newsnight, it was suggested that DEFRA and
DCMS
didn't really need to exist as separate departments at all, and a lot
could
be saved by abolishing them,

Really?

Does abolishing a ministry, but still performing all of its functionally,
save a lot?

I think you missed the bit that said, "or simply not doing some things at
all".

No I didn't

I was specifically asking about the claim that abolishing ministries whilst
moving their functionality elsewhere saves money

tim