The Treasury and Social Policy; The Contest for Control of Welfare Strategy

by Deakin, Nicholas

• ISBN13: 9780312230203
• ISBN10: 0312230206
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2000-05-05
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

What is the power of the Treasury in controlling the policies and development of a welfare state? Drawing on in-depth interviews with officials in the British Treasury and spending departments, this book traces the developing role of the Treasury in setting social policy, especially under Gordon Brown's chancellorship. It reveals the tense relationships within Whitehall as the Treasury tries to set the Government's strategy but is resisted by spending ministers and officials.

Author Biography

Nicholas Deakin is Professor Emeritus of Social Policy at the University of Birmingham.

Richard Parry is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures	ix
General Editor's Foreword	x
Preface and Acknowledgements	xiv
The Treasury: Images and Realities	1	(15)
The pursuit of power	1	(2)
Treasury people	3	(1)
Treasury politicians	4	(2)
Academic perspectives on the Treasury	6	(3)
The approach of this project	9	(2)
The Treasury in the Whitehall research programme	11	(2)
Context, `curse' and content	13	(3)
The Evolution of the Treasury's Intervention in Social Policy	16	(27)
Three images of the Treasury	17	(1)
The control of public expenditure	17	(3)
Reactions to the `overmighty Treasury'	20	(1)
The Treasury and specific social policy issues	21	(2)
The Treasury's approach to spending cuts: the archival record	23	(2)
The Treasury's attitude to social spending departments	25	(5)
Treasury attitudes to the Plowden report	30	(4)
Social policy in the early PESC reports	34	(3)
The high noon and decline of PESC	37	(3)
The Treasury under the Tories again	40	(1)
The end of PESC	41	(2)
Treasury Politics in the Post-PESC Era	43	(19)
The context of the political economy	44	(1)
Nigel Lawson's social policy	45	(4)
The evolution of the EDX system	49	(2)
The Fundamental Expenditure Reviews (FERs)	51	(1)
Better engineering of the `nuts and bolts'	52	(1)
Running costs control	52	(3)
Market-testing	55	(1)
The Private Finance Initiative	56	(3)
Resource accounting and budgeting	59	(1)
Conclusion	60	(2)
The Treasury Reinvents Itself	62	(24)
The theoretical background	62	(2)
Contingent Treasury events: the role of Terry Burns	64	(4)
The approach to the Heywood review	68	(2)
The conduct and implementation of the review	70	(3)
The main features of the new structure	73	(8)
Delayering and more power to team leaders	73	(2)
The separation of spending and budget functions	75	(2)
The proactive role of spending divisions	77	(1)
The production of strategy papers	78	(1)
The role of contracts	78	(1)
The directing role and cross-cutting issues	79	(2)
Interpreting the FER	81	(2)
Taking forward the FER approach	83	(3)
The Treasury Forms New Relationships	86	(22)
The team leader focus	86	(3)
The background and styles of team leaders	89	(3)
The team leaders' job	92	(3)
Inside the spending teams	95	(3)
The view from outside: Departmental Principal Finance Officers	98	(3)
The role of personalities	101	(4)
Developing the new style	105	(3)
The Calibration of Cash: Social Security	108	(26)
The long-term position of social security	109	(6)
The 1990s: an evolving relationship	115	(4)
Towards staged change	119	(7)
Child Support Agency	120	(1)
Disability benefits	121	(1)
Housing benefit	122	(1)
Jobseekers' allowance	123	(1)
Fraud	124	(1)
Pensions	125	(1)
Developing relationships after the FER	126	(3)
Problems in forecasting	129	(1)
The social security spending team	130	(2)
The emerging links in social security	132	(2)
More than Moving Money: The Treasury and Public Provision of Services	134	(23)
The cash-services division	135	(3)
Complex service delivery mechanisms	138	(1)
The health case	139	(6)
The education case	145	(5)
The housing case	150	(4)
Branch plants or political heavyweights?	154	(3)
The Territorial Departments and the Detachment of the Treasury	157	(22)
Centralization and devolution in the Treasury	157	(2)
Processes of territorial spending determination	159	(3)
The block/formula system	162	(5)
The `internal survey' in the territorial departments	167	(2)
The evidence on relative need	169	(4)
The impact of devolution	173	(2)
Wider implications of devolved budgeting	175	(4)
The Treasury in Labour's First Year	179	(19)
Labour's Treasury past	181	(1)
Gordon Brown's progress	182	(2)
The provenance of the `tax and spend' pledge	184	(2)
The inheritance: the context of public finances	186	(2)
Labour's initial impact and the July 1997 Budget	188	(4)
The Pre-Budget statement of November 1997	192	(1)
The March 1998 Budget and the use of fiscal instruments	193	(2)
Brown's injections of social policy funds	195	(3)
Spending Reviews, Fiscal Strategies and the Treasury in Labour's Core Executive	198	(26)
The Comprehensive Spending Reviews	198	(2)
The push for welfare reform	200	(2)
The political end-game on the Comprehensive Spending Reviews	202	(2)
The outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Reviews	204	(3)
Emerging from the welfare reform exercise	207	(1)
The Public Service Agreements: contracts reappear	208	(1)
Central mechanisms for developing social policy	209	(2)
The Brown Chancellorship: an interim assessment	211	(4)
The central choice: `beefing up' or `choking off' the Treasury	215	(3)
The Treasury's role in social policy	218	(4)
Conclusion	222	(2)
Bibliography	224	(5)
Index	229