Ellie Ames 21 October 2024

Reeves urged to promote prevention spending in Budget

Reeves urged to promote prevention spending in Budget image
Image: Martin Suker / Shutterstock.com

The chancellor has been urged to use next week’s Autumn Budget to amend fiscal rules to promote spending on prevention.

The call was made by think-tanks Demos and Institute for Government (IfG), accountancy body CIPFA, and charity the Health Foundation in a letter to Rachel Reeves.

The organisations said they welcomed the new Government’s emphasis on prevention in health, crime and other public services but highlighted the ‘long history of governments making similar promises, only for spending on prevention to become a casualty of pressures on day-to-day budgets and a victim of short-term thinking’.

Demos and the Health Foundation have proposed the creation of a new spending category called ‘Preventative Departmental Expenditure Limits’, which would see prevention sit alongside revenue spending and capital investment.

The IfG has proposed embedding prevention in the public spending framework by using the budget and spending review process to define and ringfence prevention spending.

Meanwhile, CIPFA is working with the Health Foundation to develop a methodology to identify local government spending on prevention.

The organisations said they feared that unless departments were held to account on long-term prevention spending, ‘the Government’s good intentions to promote prevention may once again fall by the wayside’.

SIGN UP
For your free daily news bulletin
Highways jobs

Chief Executive

Ebbsfleet Development Corporation
up to £165,000
Ebbsfleet is one of the UK’s most ambitious regeneration projects, a 21st-century Garden City Ebbsfleet, Kent
Recuriter: Ebbsfleet Development Corporation

Partnership Co-ordinator - Voluntary & Community

London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and London Borough of Wandsworth
£43,545 - £52,767
Partnership Co-ordinator - Voluntary & ... Wandsworth, London
Recuriter: London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and London Borough of Wandsworth

Planning Support Officer

The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Council
Up to £34359 per annum
Keep our planning service running smoothly, supporting the team that shapes the future of our borough.As a Planning Support Officer, you'll play a vit England, London, City of London
Recuriter: The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Council

Change Communications Lead

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
£42,839-£48,226
Having come out of government intervention after two years in 2024 Sandwell, West Midlands
Recuriter: Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council

Finance Officer - Debt Collection

Essex County Council
£25081.00 - £27653.00 per annum + + 26 Days Leave & Local Gov Pension
Finance Officer - Debt CollectionPermanent, Full Time£25,081 to £27,653 per annumLocation
Recuriter: Essex County Council
Linkedin Banner