Prime Cuts: Public Expenditure and social services planning in a hostile environment

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Abstract
The presumption of growth in a relatively stable economic and political environment is deeply embedded not merely in administrative and budgetary practice but in the framework of ideas that political scientists have used to analyse resource decisions. It is as much a part of the rational comprehensive planning tradition as it is of the incrementalist budgetary literature. The more turbulent economic environment and the era of cuts in public spending call for a re-appraisal of theory and practice. There have been a series of articles on this theme in the Public Administration Review (1978) and in Maurice Wright’s recently (1980) edited collection of essays and Christopher Hood’s contribution to this Journal (1980). The discussion so far seems to be an extension of the debate between the rational comphrehensive school and the incrementalists. The theme of some contributors to Maurice Wright’s book and many American writers has been to argue that cuts will be good for the public sector. Faced with a tight financial situation public authorities will be forced to adopt more rational and therefore more efficient appraisals of their spending. In the Wright volume Professor Stewart suggests that the management process can no longer focus on the increment.

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