Report

How to run the next multi-year spending review

This report from UK think tank the Institute for Government says that Labour’s missions need a reformed spending review process.

The approach taken in recent spending reviews is not up to the job of achieving Labour’s missions.

This report shows how the existing process fails to align government spending with strategic priorities and long-term value for money. The process has been undermined by the variability in its frequency and timing, the poor use of evidence to guide decisions, and a failure to reflect government priorities in Whitehall department budgets – for example, with the inadequately defined ‘levelling up’ aim going into the 2020 and 2021 spending reviews.

To give the government a better chance of delivering its missions and tackling the complex challenges it has inherited, it recommends that Rachel Reeves resets the approach to spending reviews and introduces more effective ways of managing public spending. The IfG welcomes Reeves’ plan to establish a regular cycle of spending reviews and set out the process in the Charter for Budget Responsibility.

The report calls on the chancellor to go further, running a more in-depth spending review that sets cross-departmental spending plans for each government mission, as well as each department.