Explained: How the Harper government put spending on ice – Macleans.ca
2014/12/13 Leave a comment
| Department | Authorities for 2014-15 ($millions) | Year-to-date (first six months) spending at September 30, 2014 ($millions) | % of authorities spent |
| Agriculture and Agri-food | $365 | $48 | 13.2% |
| Employment and Social Development | $1,702 | $680 | 40.0% |
| Environment | $107 | $29 | 27.1% |
| Fisheries and Oceans | $58 | $25 | 43.1% |
| Health | $1,683 | $1,047 | 62.2% |
| Natural Resources | $444 | $99 | 22.3% |
| Transport | $758 | $42 | 5.5% |
| Veterans’ Affairs | $2.7 | $1.3 | 48.1% |
Good piece by Jennifer Robson on the various ways to reduce spending:
So, if you’re in government and want to restrain your own spending, another way to do it is to just make it harder to move money out the door. There are a lot of small but incrementally effective ways to do this. Some of us use tricks to stop ourselves from spending. For example, when my mother grew alarmed by her credit card bill, she would put her card in a block of ice in the kitchen freezer. Really. I’m not making this up.
The ways:
- Increase complexity of Treasury Board processes and requirements;
- Limit “March Madness” spending;
- Tie executive bonuses to managing spending (good discipline in any case);
- Make staffing processes more lengthy and complex;
- Increase administrative burden on grants and contributions.
Even at the time when I left government in 2011, some of this was apparent and being implemented.
Explained: How the Harper government put spending on ice – Macleans.ca.
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 