Lord Gus O’Donnell said that the Government must not “play accounting games" with private finance investment in government spending.
Lord O’Donnell, who was cabinet secretary between 2005 and 2011, serving Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, toldthe UK budgets had been organised to avoid situations where infrastructure spending was the first to be cut. In a study for the Global Governance Forum, a think-tank promoting co-operation between nations, Lord O’Donnell highlighted how different countries were dealing with global political challenges including areas like infrastructure, net zero and populism. For the report,interviewed the heads of 12 civil services around the world, which noted increased tensions between civil servants and ministers, which he said made it hard for civil servants to speak “truth to power”.
He said: “It’s not just the UK, everywhere you’re finding that pay levels are not attracting enough staff, and you’ve got different ways of meeting that need. One is you get agency staff and others, consultants, all the rest of it. He said: “I think it’s been blown out of all proportion. I mean, it was becoming an issue during the last Conservative government, where there are all sorts of appointments and sackings that were just, you know, so countercultural, the Tom Scholar case comes to mind. Like I say it’s a complete reset now, and they are, I think, and Sue Gray will be the first to do this, sure that proper processes go through. They may make the odd mistake along the way, but I’m sure they’ll correct it quickly.