maintaining the credibility of cash limits

Maintaining the Credibility of Cash Limits

ANDREW LIKIERMAN

I INTRODUCTION

Since it was introduced in 1976, (HMSO. 1976) the cash limits system has become a well established means of controlling public expenditure. This ought to be a matter of, surprise even astonishment. High and volatile rates of inflation could well have put the control mechanism under intolerable pressure and since 1979 the whole system has been put at risk by being used as a pay regulator. The danger now is that success in surviving these circumstances will breed. complacency, and that the system will collapse under the same set of pressures in the future. This article sets out the nature of the pressures, the reasons why the system seems to have stood up so well to them so far and the prospects for the future.

Volatility in the role of price movements makes it difficult for any financial control system to operate. High rates of inflation do not provide a problem in themselves as long as the rates are consistently high and reasonably easy to predict. Table 1 provides the context for the period 1976 to 1982 with the rates of retail and wholesale price increases. Those figures, are of course only the context for cash limits because of the relative price effect, (RPE) whereby the wages and prices paid by the public sector change at different rates to the rate of price increases in the economy as a whole.

Nor was forecasting during the period any less hazardous, although as Table 2 shows, it became slightly more accurate in the latter part of the 1970’s. It could of course be argued that the forecasts were affected by political considerations, but even allowing for this, it is clear that there was little chance of providing a forecast sufficiently accurate to be able to isolate success in keeping within the cash limits set from discussions about whether the forecast had been too wild to provide a useful basis for measurement.

Quite apart from the volatility of the economic environment and the

Andrew Likierman works at the London Business School.

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Fiscal Studies

TABLE 1

Main price indicia 1976-82

Retail I Wholesale Change on Change on

Index previous year Index previous year

April 1976 153.5 112.9 April 1977 180.3 17.5 137.5 21.8

April 1979 214.2 10.0 165.5 9.6 April 1980 260.8 21.8 197.0 19.0 April 1981 292.2 12.0 218.0 10.7 April 1982 319.7- 9.4 237.0 8.7

April 1978 194.6 7.9 150.9 9.7

' 15 Jan 1974 = 100. All items

Source: Monthly Digest of Statistics 1975 = 100. All manufactured products

TABLE 2

Margins of error (retail price index)'

Between %

June 70 & November 76 June 70 & November 77 June 70 & October 78 June 70 & March 80

5 5#

4 4

Averages. Second quarter to second quarter. Source: Successive Financial Statement and Budget Reports

difficulties of forecasting, the present Conservative government has taken considerable risks with the system, mainly by using it to bring down the level of expectations on wages. On the face of it this is quite reasonable. Since the assumption on the increase in the pay bill is announced before the beginning of the year, what better than to give a signal on pay by publishing a figure which represents current aspirations? But since 1979, this figure has been regarded by many unions as a baseline to set the very minimum which would be acceptable as an increase-Table 3 shows the difference between the announced and actual levels of pay since 1976.

It is also clear that there has been a steady 'squeeze' on cash limited expenditure as a whole. In evidence to the Treasury and Civil Service Committee (1982) the Treasury indicated the percentage squeeze on cash

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TABLE 3

Cash limit factors for pay

Original limit outturn (Civil Service)

1976-7 f6’ f6

1978-9 10% 10%

1980-1 14% No incomes policy 18.75%5 1981-2 6% 7% + UO

1977-8 5%3 Incomes policy 5%

1979-80 5%4 25 %5

1976-7 to 1978-9. Estimates presented in terms of pay and price levels ruling at the time they were drawn up, usually some months before the beginning of the financial year. 1979-80 to 1981-2, from due settlement dates. For those earning less than €8,500 p.a. Subject to a minimum of f2.50 and a maximum of f4.00 p.w. Or f3.50 p.w. whichever greater. Incomes policy until the change of government. Staged in both years.

Source: Published figures.

limited expenditure covering the indicies used in calculating cash limits. This is shown in Table 4. It is worth noting from the table that in no case is there a negative squeeze with increases overprovided. The theory of the cash limits system is that this kind of squeeze can be accomodated by volume reductions, that is by employing fewer people or buying fewer goods and services. In practice it is likely that there is a limit to the

TABLE 4

Percentage ‘squeeze’ on cash limited expenditure

1976-7 3 1977-8 Negligible 1978-9 3 1979-80 4 198&1 2 1981-2 (est) 1

-Average for all expenditure subject to cash limits -Includes pay and makes allowance for revisions to the defence

provision in 3 years

Source: Sixth Report of the Treasury and Civil Service Committee ‘Budgetary Reform’ p. 127-Memorandum by HM Treasury

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Fiscal Studies

trade-offs between price and volume after a while: - all items are not easily substitutable €or each other nor can an exact

number of posts be reduced or people be fired to compensate for the underestimate of wage increases (if they are, redundancy costs may make it even more expensive to fire them in the short term)

- projects lasting several years can be slowed down only to a certain extent

- suppliers may, if used as a volume or price regulator, be driven out of business.

All these difficulties are of course entirely consistent with governments needing to fulfill macro-economic objectives such as reducing the rate of inflation. But taken together with the forecasting difficulties they ought to make the operation of a control system based on rigid adherence to a pre-set limit almost impossible to maintain without the support of an effective system of sanctions.

Yet, astonishingly, there appear to be no sanctions for overspending of the kind which those unfamiliar with the system (including many politi- cians) appear to believe exist. There is no equivalent of the stern bank manager refusing to honour cheques. No cash tap is turned off and when expenditure goes over the limit, there is no evidence that heads roll.

Depending on the size and frequency of the offence there may of course be some political cost for a Minister in the form of adverse press publicity, unless the explanation for overspending is considered to be reasonable. The accounting officer of a Department may also have a rough ride with the Public Accounts Committee. There is, true, a specific sanction in that it is normal policy for the amount of overspending in one year to be deducted from the cash limit of the following year. Yet even this sanction may not be all that significant if the overspending can simply be carried forward again or if next year’s limit can be raised to compensate by hard bargaining. There is no evidence that this is happening, though it would also be very difficult to prove that it is not.

The combination of forecasting uncertainty, manipulation of the assump- tions by successive governments and the lack of sanctions looks like a recipe for disaster. The next section deals with the evidence of what has happened so far.

I1 EVIDENCE

The celebrated reply by Able Sieyes in reply to the question about what he had done during the Terror (‘I survived’) might equally stand as evidence for the success of cash limits. Considering some of the surrounding economic and political climate, to have survived at all is an achievement, although hardly enough to justify the accolade of success.

Looking back to the original objective set in the 1976 White Paper, the

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purpose is stated to be to control the actual cash spent in the current year (Para 3). The White Paper did not make it clear whether control meant keeping expenditure as far as possible below the target or just hitting the target, ie whether underspending was desirable or not. Nor did the White Paper make clear whether individual blocks could be overspent if the total was within the limit.

TABLE 5

Underspending on cash limits

Local Authority Central blocks I

Government Expenditure startstapproval Borrowing blocks controlled controlled controlled

fm % fm % fm % fm %

- - 1976-7 686 2.6 283 20.4 180 22.0 1977-8 741 2.6 186 6.1 18 2.6 310 38.2 1978-9 453 1.5 482 12.8 7 1.0 48 8.4 1979-80 231 0.7 81 2.1 18 2.0 17 3.0 1980-1 447 1.1 7 0.2 208 31.1 42 6.4 1981-2’ 792 1.8 1046 14.3

Local authorities and certain other bodies. Coverage has changed from year to year. Provisional.

Source: Cash Limits White Papers

Depending on how these questions are answered, the evidence indicates that the system has been successful or at least a qualified success. Table 5 and 6 show how total expenditure has been consistently below target since the system was introduced. It is true, as Table 7 shows, that there have been breaches of individual cash limit blocks, but in comparison with the budgets the amounts have been trivial for central government and local authorities. And these breaches have been more than cancelled out by underspending on the vast majority of blocks. For nationalised industries, there has also been net underspending, but at least in 1981-2 this was the result of some hefty breaches being cancelled out by some slightly heftier underspending.

It may be, of course, that ‘containment’ has only been achieved by budgets being ‘padded’ to ensure that they can be met without too great a strain. But this must remain a matter for conjecture-almost nothing is known about bargaining over individual items when cash limits are set and there have been no ‘confessions’ from former Civil Servants or Ministers. Hugh Heclo and Aron Wildavsky (1981) gave celebrated insights into the culture, though not the mechanics of the process and Joel Barnett (1982) and Sir Leo Pliatsky (1982) in recent books were more concerned about the totals than individual items of public expenditure. Departmental evidence to Select Committees, must be treated cautiously-departments have

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Fiscal Studies

understandably affirmed that they were being squeezed, just as the Treas- ury has maintained it was keeping a tight rein. Indeed it would be astonish- ing if anything else was said. But in the light of the figures and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the containment of total expenditure within the limits set does appear to be operating successfully.

TABLE 6

External fmancing l i t s for ~tionalised industries

Outturn below (revised) EFLS'

fm %

1976-7 1977-8 1978-9 1979-80 198&1 1981-2

1057 947 697 259 88

143

32 38 26 10 3 4

Figures revised to give comparability. ' Provisional. Source: Financial Statement and Budget Reports and Public Expenditure White Papers

TABLE 7

Cash limits overspending and EFL breaches

Number of blocks overspent Amount of overspending (fm) Central Local Nationalised Central Local Nationalised

Government Authorities Industries Government Authorities Industries

1976-7 1 1 0 12 2 0 0 1977-8 2 0 0 40 -

1978-9 2 2 0 81 6 0 1979-80 11 2 1 76 9 5 1980-1 4 2 4 66 26 84 1981-2 ' 0 1 5 0 0 252

' Provisional. Source: Cash Limits White Papers, Financial Statement and Budget Reports and additional analysis provided by the Treasury.

Ministry of Defence treated as a single block.

Taking the limits as targets, however, success is less clear. As Table 5 and 6 show, it is true that the underspending is a small proportion of total expenditure-around 3%% last year and this was much higher than in the previous 3 years. But even 3%% was around &2 billion and this represents a

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significant sum. The particular problem last year (and indeed in several previous years) was capital expenditure, and the way the problem of controlling long-term projects has been tackled is dealt with in section 3.

A slightly clearer measure of success is whether the system has maintained its credibility. On the basis that there are no serious calls to disman- tle the system, here again, the system seems to have emerged well. It is true that there are attacks on aspects of the cash limits. Departments controlling large projects and several nationalised industries have complained about the rigidity of an annual cycle. There have also been complaints about the shift of expenditure from capital to current and about the way the system was being used as an unofficial pay policy. Section 4 discusses these criti- cisms and argues that some of them need to be taken very seriously, but they are not attacks at the core of the system. The suggestions for change have centred on the way the existing system should operate rather than on alternatives.

I11 WHY HAS THE SYSTEM STOOD UP SO WELL?

i. The way the system was set up. Early decisions on the scope of cash limits, the size of cash blocks and on monitoring procedures have undoubtedly contributed to the success of the system by not demanding more than it could deliver. Thus cash limits cover only around 60% of total government expenditure. It was acknowledged when the system was set up that services where expenditure was demand- determined would not be covered. As a result, there is no attempt to cover those areas where it would almost certainly be impossible to exercise the necessary control.

On the size of the cash blocks, the principle set out in the 1976 White Paper was that a block should be ‘large enough to provide spending authorities with scope for finding the most economical and effective way of carrying out their programmes within the limits, whilst at the same time assuring effective financial control’. As Table 8 shows, it is clear that there has been sufficient variation in the size of blocks to balance control and flexibility. If the size of the blocks had been too small it would have resulted in regular overspending on some blocks, which would have eroded confi- dence in the system. In one area where major problems have arisen- defence-the difficulties of holding the line were acknowledged by the decision to treat the four blocks covering defence as a single cash limit.

The decision to install the Financial Information System (and other control systems within) departments to provide a close analysis of expenditure through the year has also been vital in alerting departments and the Treasury to those areas where spending is likely to overshoot by the end of the year. Without these improved control systems, it is doubtful whether

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Fiscal Studies

the overall limits could be maintained, since information would not be available in time to know where action should be taken.

TABLE 8

She distribution of blocks 1982/3

No.

f5 billion-€10 billion f l billion-f5 billion SO0 million-El billion 2250 million--f500 million f l O O million--f250 million S O million-S100 million 225 million-fi0 million f10 million-225 million f5 million-410 million f l million-S5 million f500,00QSl million less than f500,000

4 6 9

12 19 20 15 11 14 16

5 4

ii . The system has more flexibility than is immediately apparent Table 9 to 10 show just how much flexibility there is within the system through alteration of the cash limits or through allowing overspending (Table 7). Table 9 and 10 illustrate that although the net change has been small for central government and local authority blocks, the pattern has been for between a quarter and a third of the blocks to be revised during the year though some may have been revised downwards to compensate for increases in others. For nationalised industries the changes have been significant in amount, especially in the past 2 years, though again, only about one-third of the limits have been changed. It cannot of course be openly acknowledged that revisions or overspending are a form of flexibility, lest the credibility of the system as a whole be undermined.

One other way of providing flexibility-the change in the balance of expenditure within a cash block-is easily accommodated by the system. The idea that there are trade-offs within a block has always been acknowledged as a way by which control of expenditure as a whole can be maintained. But for some programmes, departments have found it very difficult to change the balance within a cash block because of the inflexibilities in long term contracts, the difficulties of forecasting relative prices over the period ahead, and firm policy commitments. The road programme is one such example and here the Department of Transport appears to have responded by consistently playing through underspending .

It is worth noting that the ability to pay bills faster or slower, well known

36


in the private sector as one way by which budgets can be tailored to meet year-end requirements, has worked against the certain departments. In evidence to the Defence Select Committee the Ministry of Defence reported that they had been embarrassed by private sector contractors suffering from a death of private sector work, not only doing the work faster, but also presenting their bills faster than the Ministry might have wished.

TABLE 9

Changes in Central Government and local Authority blocks

Number of2 Of Which Percentage Number of Blocks Net Net Net Change of Original

Year Changes Changed Increases Decreases f m Limit

i976n7 30 28 14 14 119 -0.4 1977178 43 38 31 7 173 +0.5 1978/79 69 51 30 21 272 +0.8 19791803 60 49 33 16 940 +2.7 1980181 60 38 21 17 234 +0.6 1981/825 37 36 21 15 455 +1.0

' EFLs are excluded. A block may be changed more than once during the year. Figures based on Cmnd 7604 the revised cash limits White Paper for 1979180. These may have been to compensate for increases in other blocks. Provisional.

Source: Cash Limits White Papers.

TABLE 10

Changes to nationalised industry EFLs

Revisions Revised Total Outturn as % of Numbers Amount EFL outturn' Original Revised (all up) fm. fm. f m . EFL EFL

1976-7 1 74 3300 2243 70 68 1977-8 0 - 2721 1474 61 61 1978-9 1 49 2643 1946 75 74 1979-80 3 320 2648 2389 103 90 1980-1 6 888 3214 3126 134 97 1981-2 5 997 3380 3237 136 96

' Revised to give comparability.

Source: Financial Statement and Budget Reports, with additional analysis provided by the Treasury.

Based on revised figures set in June 1979.

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iii. Resisting attempts to allow carry-over In the 1976 White Paper, it was recognised that there would be problems in dividing expenditure on major projects into amounts exactly fitting an annual cycle. Paragraph 18 stated

‘For certain services, such as the roads and hospital building programmes, where the timing of expenditure on existing projects cannot be precisely controlled, some arrangements are needed to allow a limited amount of flexibility between successive financial years and between current and capital expenditure. The extent to which such arrangements are required will be decided in the light of experience’.

In practice the Treasury has resolutely refused to let the system be eroded by permitting carry-over from one year to another except in very excep- tional cases. The only concession made so far is a very limited degree of flexibility for the overseas aid programme and for the external financial limits for nationalised industries though, in the spirit of the 1976 White Paper, there is also flexibility within the overall cash limit for health authorities and local authorities.

These concessions so far are trifling in comparison with what has been demanded by a variety of government departments, Select Committees and outside bodies. An attempt to change the system was made by the Public Accounts Committee. In their report (1980) the Committee, while recognis- ing the problem of loss of control if carry-forward was allowed, suggested a limited experiment combining a scheme suggested by the Treasury with a ‘less censorious attitude to occasional overspending’. In this way the Com- mittee saw the possibility of extending cash limits to other areas of public expenditure. But when the Committee came back to the subject (1981) the Treasury announced that it had abandoned its own proposals since the amount which would have to be set aside as a contingency was too high, bearing in mind public expenditure constraints. The Committee did not seek to push them further.

It is easy to sympathise with the difficulties of trying to juggle expenditure on programmes such as defence or roads so that it fits a cut-off point at the end of each year. Yet by holding out, the Treasury has maintained a visibly tough stance which sets the tone of holding the line while, as Table 7 to 9 show, allowing flexibility through revisions or overspending. In some ways this is less efficient in managerial terms than allowing the much greater degree of flexibility to manage long-term programmes. But there is undoubtedly a conflict between the aim of being seen to maintain the fabric of the control system and allowing more flexible programme management. The choice has been to maintain the fabric of the system and if one takes the view that of the two, this is the more important objective, then the stance is logical.

The Treasury’s resistance was probably a higher risk strategy than was

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generally recognised. It is possible that faith in the system could only have been maintained by allowing sufficient flexibility from one year to another to keep up the facade of control. In fact the Civil Service culture, discussed below, seems to have been strong enough to be able to keep a tight rein without imposing intolerable strains.

iv. The Civil Service culture Serious cultural studies require the services of proper anthopologists, but there is at least circumstantial evidence that the cash limits system has been supported by powerful pressure from within the Civil Service. In terms of the sporting metaphors so beloved in Whitehall, departments have played the game, kept their eye on the ball and toed the line. The political message has certainly been clear enough and there has been a consistent message from successive governments that the containment of public expenditure was a very high priority and one of the preconditions for achieving macro- economic objectives. Indeed it has been widely reported that the housekeeping rather than strategic abilities of Mr. Nott and Mr. Heseltine have been responsible for their appointments as Secretaries of State for Defence.

Within the political framework, for Civil Service has delivered the goods in that those responsible for expenditure have generally kept within the cash limits, despite the apparent absence of sanctions for failing to do so. The influence of the Treasury must have been important in this, although if spending departments had not been willing to acquiese, the Treasury would hardly have been able to hold the line alone. How leverage was exercised within the system and whether there were any informal sanctions has not been revealed, but since it would have been much simpler for some departments to overspend on a much bigger scale and to provide any number of excellent excuses afterwards, there must have been enough informal pressure to act as a countervailing force. Further circumstantial evidence of informal pressure is given by the example of how difficult it has been to control local authorities-a group of spenders whose numbers include those clearly unwilling to play the Whitehall game.

IV PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE

There are good grounds for believing that there are now some powerful threats to the credibility of the system and that the continuation of some of the favourable factors which have maintained the system so far cannot be taken for granted. The threats come in the use of the system to influence pay settlements, in government attitudes towards underspending, overspending and revisions, and from the lack of any effective sanctions. The expenditure areas in which these threats are particularly evident are defence, and nationalised industries.

Long before cash limits were introduced, governments were attempting

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Fiscal Studies

to influence the level of pay settlements in a variety of ways. The present government is continuing to use the system to give clear signals about pay, whilst maintaining that there is no pay policy and that trade-offs within a block are always available. For 198314 it has been announced that 3?h% would be the budgeted pay figure. ‘It is not a pay norm. Each Department has its own specific budget within which expenditure on wages and salaries must be accommodated’ (H. M. Treasury 1982). Once again, it seems, the government is using this figure to reduce inflationary expectations.

In November 1980, it was said that cash limits ‘are now being used to impose a volume squeeze and to provide the framework through which public sector pay is to be negotiated . . . cash limits cannot provide a clear financial discipline and a framework for public sector pay without failing in each of these purposes’ (Bevan 1980) and a year later that ‘Cash limits as currently used to control public sector pay can be seen as another short- term expedient to a long-standing problem . . . the evidence suggests that the present Government’s use of cash limits is no substitute for a long-term policy for public sector pay’ (Bevan, Sisson, Way 1981). The Armstrong Committee had pointed gloomily to the danger in wider terms ‘it is ques- tionable whether the cash limits system as currently operated is a durable one. Sooner or later, because of both forecasting difficulties and the pressure on governments to understate expected inflation, the gap between actual inflation and the pre-specified rate will almost inevitably turn out to be so wide that cash limits cannot be enforced without unacceptable consequences for the provision of services’ (Institute of Fiscal Studies 1980). So far, government has got away with underbudgeting in that the consequences have not yet been judged ‘unacceptable’. The danger is that each year that the announced pay figure is exceeded, the credibility of the system is reduced. Even with 3 million unemployed, the prospects for a 3%% pay settlement in 1983/4 look optimistic. So while the fears expressed in 1980 and 1981 have not yet been seen to be justified, time must now be running out.

Quite apart from the erosion of credibility from this quarter, time must also be running out for departments to underspend on capital programmes. If the government wishes to expand the economy reasonably quickly, a boost to capital investment programmes should be one of the easiest ways to do it. But this will curtail the freedom of manoeuvre which has so far been available to departments.

The cumulative run-down of capital programmes has directly given rise to yet another source of strain for the system. Apparently as a direct conse- quence of the visit of construction industry leaders to No 10 Downing Street in October 1982, the Prime Minister let it be known that underspending on capital by local authorities and nationalised industries should be made up as soon as possible, since this underspending was making the recession worse. The Prime Minister’s concern is understandable, but such statements must further undermine the system.

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If the message is that underspending is to be avoided, this must increase the pressure to regard occasional overspending as a normal part of the system. More prosaically the Prime Ministers statement is also likely to undermine the system by reinforcing the belief that central government has quite unrealistic expectations about the way in which capital projects can be started and stopped.

Local authorities have been at the centre of another controversy over a succession of attempts to control the overall level of their expenditure. This issue raises much wider questions on the financial autonomy of local authorities. But it has brought out into the open the failure of the attempts to exercise the control and the difficulty of applying effective sanctions. Worse, the sanctions which have been imposed ‘have penalised the blame- less, while encouraging some overspenders to overspend further’ (Pauley 1982). Table 7 has shown that limited overspending is a necessary element of flexibility. But if it is generally believed that blocks can be overspent with impunity, the importance of keeping to the limit will be seen as a mere ‘paper tiger’.

The flexibility on revisions and overspending which has been a source of strength in the past may then turn out to be a source of weakness. Writing in 1977, Wright stated ‘For whatever good reason, the more cash limits are breached or revised, the harder it will become to make them credible and binding in the future’. The level of overspending and revisions has so far been accommodated, but recent problems may yet justify Wright’s pessim- ism. Certainly the process has not been as considered as that suggested by Else and Marshall (1979). Table 9 and 10 showed the enormous increase in the size of overspending and revisions to nationalised industry EFLs. Table 11 shows the recent significant overspending and revisions to the Ministry of Defence cash limit blocks. If the system is under threat, these are uncom- fortably large sums to justify. True, after the recent difficulties in forecasting and the effect of the recession are past, a more ‘normal’ pattern of expenditure may be possible for the Ministry of Defence and the nationalised industries. But a precedent has now been set for a much higher level of revisions and overspending than was envisaged by the 1976 White Paper or is presumably contemplated when individual limits are set.

The combination of these factors shows that while on the surface the system has successfully survived difficult times, it will need great care if credibility is not to be steadily undermined by a combination of underbudgeting for pay, the demonstration that there are no sanctions and the size of revisions and overspending. At the moment the economic climate is better than it has been for some time, with inflation not only falling but also less variable than at any time since 1976. On the other hand, as from the 1982/3 financial year there is less freedom of manouvre than in the past. The new system of cash planning means that the price base will no longer be revalued each year, as it was with the volume-based PESC system. This means that any cash limits squeeze will be carried forward

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Fiscal Studies

TABLE 11

Ministry of Defence cash blocks’

Revisions (underspending) % of (fm) Overspending1 (fm) revised budget

(65) (1.1) (1.5) (95)

1976-7 -

1.1 1977-8 - 1978-9 - 1979-80 204 62 0.7 1980-1 203 64 0.6 1981-2 319 - -

75

Four treated as one. Source: Cash Limits White Papers.

year-by-year unless positive steps are taken to stop it. This contrasts with the volume-based system whereby each year started from a new base unless positive steps were taken to maintain a squeeze. If the new system results in progressively higher overspending by a variety of bodies it will only serve to illustrate that overspending is quite normal and that there are no effective sanctions to stop it.

The present government appears to be willing to gamble on the future of cash limits in order to achieve other ends, notably a reduction in inflationary expectations and therefore inflation but also economic fine-tuning and scoring some party political points. By taking more care to avoid jeopardis- ing the systems credibility, it is very doubtful whether such a gamble really needs to be taken.

REFERENCES

Barnett, J. 1982 ‘Inside the Treasury’. Andre Deutsch. Bevan, R. G. 1980 ‘Cash Limits’. Fiscal Studies Vol. 1 No. 4. Bevan, R. G., Sisson K., Way, P. 1981 ‘Cash Limits and Public Sector Pay’. Public

Else, P. K. and Marshall, G. P. 1979 ‘The management of public expenditure’ Policy Studies

Heclo, H. and Wildavsky, A. 1981 2nd edition ‘The Private Government of Public Money’

HMSO, 1976. ‘Cash Limits on Public Expenditure’. Cmnd 6440. H.M. Treasury 1982. Economic Progress Report No. 150. Institute of Fiscal Studies, 1980. ‘Budgetary reform in the U.K.’. O.U.P. for the Institute of

Pauley, R. 1982 ‘Council spending sanctions sought’. Financial Times 15.9.82.

Administration Vol. 59.

Institute Vol. XLV No. 580.

Macmillan.

Fiscal Studies.

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Maintaining the Credibility of Cash LimikF

Pliatsky, Sir. L. 1982. ‘Getting and Spending’. Basil Blackwell. Public Accounts Committee-1980 ‘Carry-over of cash limits at the end of the financial

Public Accounts Committee-1981 ‘Carry-over of cash limits at the end of the financial

Treasury and Civil Service Committee 1982. ‘Budgetary Reform’. Session 1981-2. Sixth

Wright, M. 1977. ‘Public Expenditure in Britain: The crisis of control’. Public

year’. Session 1979-80. 27th Report.

year’. Session 1980-81. 14th Report.

Report p. 127.

Administration Vol. 55.

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maintaining the credibility of cash limits

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