Budget: Cuts of more than 25% in Whitehall needed to fill £46bn black hole in Darling's figures

Daily Mail
"Government departments could have their budgets slashed by more than a quarter after the election to plug a multi-billion black hole in Alistair Darling's figures, a leading think-tank warned today.The Institute of Fiscal Studies said Whitehall departments will have to find savings of £25billion over the next two years, almost doubling to £46billion by 2014-15, to make the Chancellor's numbers add up.Because Labour has pledged to ring fence front-line spending for schools, the NHS and overseas aid, larger savings will have to be made in other departments.Carl Emmerson of the IFS warned the rest will have to find savings of 14 per cent by 2012-13. If the ring-fencing goes on beyond that, this figures would almost double to 25.4 per cent by 2014-15.'This next spending settlement is set to be very tight for areas such as higher education, transport and housing,' he said."