CIPFA Conference 2010
Last week, I went to the CIPFA conference in Harrogate. The main speaker at the conference was Göran Persson, former Swedish Prime Minister, from 1996 to 2006 and whose government tackled a large Swedish deficit in the 1990s.
Among his main points were:
The Government should start cutting public spending at once.
Mr Persson said that if a nation’s debt is not tackled swiftly the markets will dictate what the government can do.
He said the government must get the right balance between spending cuts and tax increases, but said that errors in taxing levels are more easily rectified and therefore more easily forgiven by the electorate.
He also was very firm that we should ring fence nothing. A ring fenced department will have no incentive to change. Also if everyone is subject to cuts, it becomes easier to refute special interest lobbies.
Also addressing the Conference was Colm McCarthy, the economist whose advice was important in guiding the current Irish government’s austerity measures.
Ashmansworth Village Tree Planting
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Pictured friom right to left: Ruth Kent, Carol O’Shaughnessy, Tom, Alan Cox
