Government wasting ‘billions’

Government departments are repeating ‘basic’ errors and wasting billions of pounds in the process, a committee of MPs warns today. A review of its own investigations over the ten years by the public accounts committee finds that departments are failing to learn from their mistakes, or those made in other areas of the public sector. […]

Brown’s speech in full

Mr Speaker, Having taken the long term decisions to achieve and sustain low inflation and economic stability, the task of this Pre Budget Report is to meet and master the global economic challenge, making the critical decisions to secure Britain’s long term economic future. And the theme of this Report is that, by combining our […]

Pre-Budget report submissions

Organisations are hoping for action on everything from public spending to child poverty in the chancellor’s pre-Budget report. politics.co.uk brings you a selection. British Chambers of Commerce: Opportunity to help manufacturing British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) director general David Frost says that the pre-Budget report is an opportunity for the chancellor to “throw a critical […]

Brown backtracks over economic forecasts

Gordon Brown has today been forced to downgrade his economic growth predictions as he made his pre-Budget statement to the House of Commons. The chancellor admitted that Britain’s economy was not increasing at the rate he predicted in March’s Budget – between three and 3.5 per cent – but in fact was growing at 1.75 […]

ONS to be made independent

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will be made independent from government to safeguard its work from political interference, Gordon Brown said today. Currently a government department, the ONS is responsible for producing economic and social statistics, which are used both as a basis for policy making and holding government to account on its performance. […]