It is a year on from the spending review – are we asking the right questions?

The first anniversary of the coalition government 2010 spending review falls this week. Social, political and economic onlookers are gearing up to assess whether, as George Osborne said on the 20th October last year, it was the day that Britain stepped ‘back from the brink’.

With record unemployment at home, and eurozone chaos abroad, many will be asking whether Osborne’s turbo-austerity, 0-60 in one parliament plan is the right one. Quite right, but will anyone question the logic of tying economics to political cycles in this way? The last spending round takes us nicely up to the eve of the next general election, for which the political logic is obvious, but for those delivering services with the remaining public money this sort of planning is anathema. To use the household analogy of which the coalition is so fond, treating 2015 as year zero is akin to clearing the mortgage by the date you assume you will move out.

Those with an eye on particular public services will direct their ire as necessary, as the opening shots on child poverty have already shown. Again, quite right too, and it is crucial that the coalition are held to account on the fluff and noise that accompanied the spending review – platitudes such as ‘protecting the vulnerable’ and ‘ensure those that most need it continue to receive support’, that the chancellor hung out for the open-mouthed voluntary sector. Again, when the questions are asked on behalf of each important and dependent group – from the disabled, to the elderly, and vulnerable children – will anyone ask whether more can be done to protect people than simply fighting on their behalf for the scraps of remaining funds?

Yes, we must talk about the real-life and real-time consequences of spending cuts. Yes, there is a perfect storm of increasing need and reducing provision swirling over the heads delivery agencies up and down the country. Of course, time is running out for families out of work and on the edge of crisis, particularly as the spectre of draconian welfare reforms threatens such a desperate crisis.

Yet we must address another question. Next time a recession hits how can we ensure that the right services are protected? And more specifically, how can we ensure that public spending that delivers results in the longer term is allowed to do just that?

Labour introduced the current system after a year in office, and quite rightly sought to move away from a hand-to-mouth budgeting culture. As Gordon Brown said in 1998 when announcing the current system: ‘the innovation of the comprehensive spending review is to move away from short-termism’. In reality however, the spending review process has only served to enforce a slightly longer but equally arbitrary timescale for the delivery of public services. Your best bet for commissioning contracts at local authority level is a two or three year shot, and the vast majority operate on far less.

Those that deliver public contracts know that this ‘innovation’ is an incomplete and urgent reform. In social care, in children’s services, in mental health and so many other arenas, results take time. Outcomes are driven by stable professional approaches, by fidelity, by security. Short-termism only serves a political master, one that is determined to try something new every time a political cycle demands, and one that seldom brave enough to give preventative, truly transformation ‘social’ work the time it needs to succeed.

David Cameron once said that he believed in ‘horizon shift’ policymaking. If he is serious, now is the time to look to a future free of short-term spending rounds. Our two Eds presumably also believe in something similar, so I hope they will do the progressive thing and look to modernising the way we spend money, and not just what we spend it on.

The spending review process must itself be reviewed.

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Matt Downie is chair of Hornsey and Wood Green Labour party and tweets  @matthew_downie

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Photo: Ewan McIntosh