Four government departments - including the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) - have provisionally agreed to cut spending by up to 30% over the next four years.
Chancellor George Osborne is expected to use a speech later today to confirm that the DCLG, The Treasury, the Department for Transport, and the Department for Environment have made a deal to cut spending by 8% per year for the next four years ahead of the spending review.
Mr Osborne is expected to say later: ‘Let me put it another way: if our country doesn't bring the deficit down, the deficit could bring our country down.
‘That's why, for the economic security of every family in Britain, the worst thing we could do now as a country is lose our nerve.’
The Government hopes that by naming the four departments, other departments will be encouraged to agree cuts for the spending review.
Mr Osborne wrote to all heads of departments back in July, instructing them to map out scenarios from cuts of 25% and 40% to their resource budgets by 2019/20.
