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As Britain braces itself for biggest spending cuts since the war, minister's gaffe reveals: One in ten public sector workers faces axe

By James Chapman
Last updated at 11:51 PM on 19th October 2010

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...faces-axe.html


George Osborne will usher in four years of pain today as he attempts to repair the battered public finances

One in ten public sector workers will lose their jobs in the bloodiest spending cuts since the Second World War.

Millions more will be told to take a pay cut or reduce their hours as George Osborne ushers in four years of pain today.

The Chancellor is pinning his hopes on the private sector creating hundreds of thousands of jobs as he sets out plans to repair the battered public finances.

State workers, who currently account for one in five of the workforce, are bracing themselves for compulsory redundancies, vacancies left unfilled and recruitment freezes.

The public sector, welfare, tax credits and the Home Office and Ministry of Justice will all take the strain of paying off Britain's record budget deficit in moves expected to include:
A dramatic acceleration of the timetable to increase the state pension age;
Entire areas of state activity handed over to businesses, charities and citizens;
Further cuts to tax credits, removing them from middle earners;
A reprieve for child benefit for 16 to 19-year-olds after a dramatic lastminute U-turn by Mr Osborne;
Cuts of around 50 per cent to the housing budget in an end to 'a council home for life';
The biggest sell-off of state assets since Margaret Thatcher to raise more than £20billion.

The action comes as the Governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King last night warned that Britain's 'nice' decade of low inflation and solid economic-growth will now be replaced by a 'sober' decade.

As the Chancellor sharpened his axe, key details of the Government's radical deficit reduction plan were unwittingly revealed by Liberal Democrat Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander.

He was pictured in the back of a car in Downing Street reading a document predicting that 490,000 state employees would lose their jobs by 2014-15 as a result of cuts of more than 50 per cent by some departments.

It made clear the Government accepts forecasts on public sector employment from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. It predicts that by 2016, the figure for job losses will have reached 610,000, or one in ten of the bloated public sector workforce.

More...
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500,000 public sector jobs to go: Danny Alexander lets the cat out of the bag on spending cuts
£9billion worth of council homes are inherited by 90,000 people who don't need government help
Cut to the bone: Cameron confirms 25,000 MoD staff and 17,000 from Armed Forces ARE to go in defence savings


Around 14,000 jobs are to go at the Ministry of Justice alone - 11,000 of them from the frontline, meaning posts like prison officers, probation officers, and magistrates' court staff will be lost.

Mr Alexander's papers also disclosed that millions of public sector employees who survive the cull will be told they must take a pay cut or reduce their hours.

It said state employers will be encouraged to make 'voluntary deals with staff on pay restraint or reduced hours to save jobs'.

[PIORARMADDERI]

how would spending cuts aid the UK economy as a whole?