Budget plans to go in front of a 'star chamber'

The much-cited Canadian model of cutting public sector budgets, described earlier this year at the Guardian public services summit by former Canadian prime minister Paul Martin, will rely on public managers imposing high levels of cuts on their own services. The most radical plan for making cuts in the UK public budgets will involved importing a Canadian-style "star chamber", in which ministers and managers will have to justify their budget plans to a group of the most senior political and civil service leaders. At the summit, Martin acknowledged the pain caused by this approach - he said departments who did not set their own budget cuts had them imposed on them and added that some of the cuts his government made could be seen as both arbitrary and unreasonable. Some departments in Canada faced cuts of more than 50%. But Martin stressed that after 30 years of budget deficit, there was "no other way". The Institute for Government has published an analysis by former Canadian senior civil servant and academic Jocelyn Bourgon of Canada's budget cuts and the lessons that can be learned by other countries. She says that speed is important and that public judgment on the relative fairness of the effect of cuts across society was vital. All cuts affect individuals, so ensuring that there is a balance of specific interests with the collective interest is key. However the autumn spending review is managed, the process is going to be brutal. In Canada, the government started with a notion of which services to preserve, because, as David Cameron has forcefully pointed out in his speech today on the rising level of public sector interest repayment, compound interest on a public sector deficit means governments are unable to invest in areas, even if they need growth. The Canadian example, which is being closely examined by the UK government, also included greater use of social enterprise - and in his speech earlier this year, Martin admitted that this was an area where Canada had failed to use the full potential of social enterprises in filling some of the gaps created by cuts in public services. He also said, in an interview with the Guardian that the situation in the UK is very different from that faced by Canada in the 1990s. "I am not going to tell you Brits what to do," he said.