Steve Hilton's parting shots: £25bn in cuts and a broadside at the civil service:
David Cameron's chief strategist begins sabbatical, calling for further reductions in welfare bill and Whitehall streamlining
Steve Hilton, David Cameron's chief strategy adviser, has left Downing Street, calling for £25bn welfare cuts and claiming an inefficient Whitehall machine could be massively reduced in size, possibly more than halved.
The prime minister's closest adviser for more than five years is taking a year-long sabbatical in California where he plans to study how governance can be improved.
Hilton has had a series of run-ins within Whitehall, frustrated at the slow pace of reform and impatient for more radical thinking, including from Cameron himself.
The Daily Telegraph reports that he has submitted a policy paper marking out a second phase of welfare reform that builds on the changes implemented by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith. Hilton claims another £25bn can be cut on top of the £18bn identified through the 2010 spending review process.
The chancellor, George Osborne, has already signalled that he believes another £10bn of welfare cuts will be necessary by 2016 if extra cuts are not to be demanded from other government departments.
Universal credit, the major reform being introduced by the government, has yet to be implemented, and there are nerves across Whitehall about how well it will work in practice. It is due to be implemented for new claimants from October 2013 with the transition completed in 2017. It is expected 500,000 people on current trends will be on universal credit by April 2014.
The Telegraph sources claimed universal credit needed changing so there were clearer incentives for individuals to work longer hours.
It is not entirely clear what this proposal means in practice since universal credit has already been structured so that an individual receives more the longer they work.
One of the reforms being examined is how housing benefit can be reformed so that young people are required to live with their parents if they have no work.
In public, at a lecture to the Policy Exchange thinktank last week, Duncan Smith refused to be drawn about the need for further welfare cuts, but he is not temperamentally opposed to fresh reforms and has already outlined plans to reform disability living allowance. At the same time he has said there are no easy targets.
Ministers have however been struck by the speed with which some people are disappearing from the welfare rolls as they are being brought in for work capability assessments by officials from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).
The DWP announced this week that of the first 47,400 incapacity benefit claimants to be reassessed and found fit to work, 27% – 12,900 – had been on the benefit for more than 10 years. Eight per cent – 3,900 – had been on the benefit for more than 15 years.
The Liberal Democrats have already indicated that if there are to be further welfare cuts to be identified before the next election, the first victim should be middle-class welfare, especially the wealthy in receipt of cold weather payments or free bus travel.
Hilton's direct or indirect briefing will infuriate the Lib Dems as they try to focus attention on efforts to improve social mobility.
The sabre-rattling about the inadequacy of the civil service comes as the FDA, the senior civil servants' union, welcomes David Penman as its new general secretary.
He has said: "The relentless onslaught of organisational change, the government's austerity measures and the resulting attacks on jobs, pay and pensions mean this is an unsettling and difficult time for many public servants."
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David Cameron's chief strategist begins sabbatical, calling for further reductions in welfare bill and Whitehall streamlining
Steve Hilton, David Cameron's chief strategy adviser, has left Downing Street, calling for £25bn welfare cuts and claiming an inefficient Whitehall machine could be massively reduced in size, possibly more than halved.
The prime minister's closest adviser for more than five years is taking a year-long sabbatical in California where he plans to study how governance can be improved.
Hilton has had a series of run-ins within Whitehall, frustrated at the slow pace of reform and impatient for more radical thinking, including from Cameron himself.
The Daily Telegraph reports that he has submitted a policy paper marking out a second phase of welfare reform that builds on the changes implemented by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith. Hilton claims another £25bn can be cut on top of the £18bn identified through the 2010 spending review process.
The chancellor, George Osborne, has already signalled that he believes another £10bn of welfare cuts will be necessary by 2016 if extra cuts are not to be demanded from other government departments.
Universal credit, the major reform being introduced by the government, has yet to be implemented, and there are nerves across Whitehall about how well it will work in practice. It is due to be implemented for new claimants from October 2013 with the transition completed in 2017. It is expected 500,000 people on current trends will be on universal credit by April 2014.
The Telegraph sources claimed universal credit needed changing so there were clearer incentives for individuals to work longer hours.
It is not entirely clear what this proposal means in practice since universal credit has already been structured so that an individual receives more the longer they work.
One of the reforms being examined is how housing benefit can be reformed so that young people are required to live with their parents if they have no work.
In public, at a lecture to the Policy Exchange thinktank last week, Duncan Smith refused to be drawn about the need for further welfare cuts, but he is not temperamentally opposed to fresh reforms and has already outlined plans to reform disability living allowance. At the same time he has said there are no easy targets.
Ministers have however been struck by the speed with which some people are disappearing from the welfare rolls as they are being brought in for work capability assessments by officials from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).
The DWP announced this week that of the first 47,400 incapacity benefit claimants to be reassessed and found fit to work, 27% – 12,900 – had been on the benefit for more than 10 years. Eight per cent – 3,900 – had been on the benefit for more than 15 years.
The Liberal Democrats have already indicated that if there are to be further welfare cuts to be identified before the next election, the first victim should be middle-class welfare, especially the wealthy in receipt of cold weather payments or free bus travel.
Hilton's direct or indirect briefing will infuriate the Lib Dems as they try to focus attention on efforts to improve social mobility.
The sabre-rattling about the inadequacy of the civil service comes as the FDA, the senior civil servants' union, welcomes David Penman as its new general secretary.
He has said: "The relentless onslaught of organisational change, the government's austerity measures and the resulting attacks on jobs, pay and pensions mean this is an unsettling and difficult time for many public servants."
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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