Upcoming Events :
Seminar: Outsourcing and Contract Procurement
Tue 28 Feb 2012
Minerva House, 5 Montague Close, London, SE1 9BB
King welcomes efforts to reduce budget deficit
Thu 17 Jun 2010
The governor of the Bank of England has praised the government's strategy of cutting public spending sooner rather than later.
Mervyn King said achieving a steady reduction in the UK's £156 billion budget deficit cannot be postponed indefinitely.
He welcomed the government's commitment to putting the country's public finances on a "sound footing", before stressing the importance of ensuring national debt as a proportion of GDP "returns to a declining path" in the medium term.
Mr King was speaking at Mansion House after George Osborne gave his first speech at the annual gathering of the financial sector as chancellor of the exchequer.
The new chancellor told City bankers that his upcoming emergency Budget would set out a "credible plan" to speed up the reduction in the structural deficit.
Mr Osborne also said it would determine the "overall envelope for spending" which the upcoming review in autumn would allocate between each government department.
He added that the Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition would hold the most "far-reaching and open-minded exercise in public engagement on spending priorities" in the UK's history.
Richard Tinham, commercial partner and outsourcing specialist at Winckworth Sherwood Solicitors, commented: "Both central and local government should be investigating how they might remove liabilities from their balance sheet.
"Local authorities, in particular, should be investigating whether assets might be more effectively utilised through shared service arrangements with other local authorities, or through outsourcing arrangements with special purpose vehicles (set up for that purpose) or the private sector more generally."
