Pre-Budget Report 2004 Summary Leaflet | Delivering high quality public services

			Pre-Budget Report 2004 Summary Opportunity for all: The strength to take the long-term decisions for Britain


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The Government is committed to providing new investment in Britain's public services. Plans for spending over the next three years were announced in the Spending Review in July 2004. Spending on public services will be £61 billion a year higher by 2007-08 compared with 2004-05. Over 75 per cent of planned increases will be spent on the Government's priorities of education, health, social services, transport, housing and the fight against crime.

The Government is determined to secure value for money for the taxpayer, and has set out plans to achieve efficiency gains across the public sector of over £20 billion a year by 2007-08, including through a reduction of more than 80,000 civil service adminstrative posts. This will release resources for front-line services. The Pre-Budget Report:

describes progress on departmental efficiency plans, including savings on medicines for the NHS of £1 billion per year from 2005-06, value for money gains of £2 billion in central government procurement, and a total of around 4,000 public sector posts moving out of London and the South East by the end of 2004-05;
allocates extra financial support for local government to help deliver public service improvements and ease council tax pressures; and
announces that to meet the UK's commitments in Iraq and elsewhere in the fight against terrorism, an additional £520 million will be made available in 2004-05.