The Treasury and Whitehall

Abstract The Treasury is at the heart of British Government, responsible for deciding how much to spend and on what. Both the institution and the public expenditure process are the focus of this book. Based on research undertaken with the cooperation of the Treasury and Whitehall departments, it shows how the key decisions of planning, allocating and controlling public expenditure are made. With access to treasury Expenditure Controllers and senior financial officials in the main spending departments, the book provides an account of the roles, relationships and inter-actions of the key players in Whitehall Expenditure Community as they confront each other in annual rituals of the Expenditure ‘Survey’. It explains how the rules of the expenditure game were re-drawn in the 1980s in the relentless search for cuts, greater economy and efficiency in the design and delivery of public services, and the creation of a more enterprising administrative culture. It discusses how and why the Treasury was rarely able to impose its constitutional authority to stem the tide of rising public expenditure through the turbulent years of the Thatcher and Major Governments. The book also demonstrates that the Treasury is locked into a system of mutually constrained power relationships with the Whitehall departments, and obliged to negotiate discretionary authority to control their spending.