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Spending Review highlights by department
Place North West | 20th October 2010

The detail from George Osborne's speech and how it relates to the property and regeneration industries.
Industry reaction below the bullet-points
Transport and infrastructure

•15% cut in overall Department for Transport £15.9bn budget
•£431m Mersey Gateway funding protected, paving way for second bridge between Widnes and Runcorn
•Capital spending, much of it on transport and infrastructure, will be around £2bn a year higher than set out in the emergency Budget, says Osborne
•£100m electrification of train lines between Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and Blackpool goes ahead
•£14bn will be invested in maintaining the nation's railways, including stations and network "around Manchester"
•£30bn in total for transport over next four years
•Prospect of High Speed 2 links from London to Birmingham and then Manchester and Leeds will continue to be explored, no cost detail given
•The chancellor paved the way for rail ticket price increases by lifting the cap on regulated fares to RPI plus 3% for the three years from 2012. This will help pay for new rolling stock and improved passenger conditions
•Superfast broadband pilot in Cumbria goes ahead
•Transport secretary Philip Hammond will set out full transport spending plans next week
Housing

•More flexible tenure terms for social housing in future
•Terms for existing social housing tenants unchanged
•New tenants to pay 80% of market rate rent
•£4.4bn capital resources approved
•60% off the affordable housebuilding budget, gap to be filled by higher rents
•Osborne: "...a generation ago only one in ten families in social housing had no-one working, this had risen to one in three by 2008-09."
•Decent Homes programme to improve social housing stock continues
•150,000 new affordable houses to be delivered over the next four years
Local authorities

•Osborne said: "Local democracy has been undermined in past..."
•Council budgets cut by 7.1% a year for four years, a total of 28% over the period
•Devolution of financial control to local councils will go ahead
•Ring-fencing of revenue grants will end from April next year
•Tax increment finance, borrowing against future business rates to pay for major developments, confirmed
Defence

•Government aims to save £350m a year from Defence Estates budget
•Budget to be reduced by 8% over four years to £33.5bn by 2014-15
Sustainability

•£1bn for carbon capture and storage project
•£200m for offshore wind technology and manufacturing at port sites
•£1bn for Green Investment Bank raised from savings and asset sales
•Cuts to Department of Energy and Climate Change budget of 30% by 2014/15
•Defra budget down 8% a year
Banks

•Osborne blamed banks' behaviour on poor previous regulation
•Aims to extract maximum tax revenue from banks
•Four out of 15 banks signed up to code of practice to pay taxes under Labour
•"Permanent levy on banks... will provide more each year than one-year levy on bonuses."
Planning

•Planning system "to put local people in charge"
•Osborne said: "We will reform the planning system so we put local people in charge, reduce burdens on builders and encourage more homes to be built, with a New Homes Bonus scheme
Justice

•Ministry of Justice budget will fall from £9.5bn to £7bn over four years at 6% a year
•153 magistrates and county courts to close
•14,000 full-time staff to go
•£1.3bn for prison maintenance goes ahead
•New 1,500 prison facility deferred
•Capital savings of 50% over four years, investment focused on "essential maintenance and on projects that produce sustainable savings for the department."
•No mention of surviving new court schemes specifically, such as the long-awaited decision on a new Liverpool magistrate's court
Health

•One of the so-called 'protected' departments, along with education, security and infrastructure
•Health spending will rise each year over and above inflation from £104bn this year to £114bn over the next four years
•Looking for £20bn savings but these will be reinvested in health
•Spending on health research protected
•Funding confirmed for priority hospital schemes including Royal Oldham and West Cumberland
Education

•Freeze on the science budget, in effect a cut over five years, budget is £4.6bn a year
•£300m a year of efficiency savings to be reinvested in education
•Capital spending will be cut by 60% by 2014 when counting the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future programme, from £8.4bn over the previous three year period to £4.4bn over the next four years
•Government still plans to rebuild and refurbish 600 schools with £15.8bn
•Spend includes £3.5bn for the seven research councils and £1bn for university research through the Higher Education Funding Council for England
•Higher education research and science parks helped by protected health budget
Communities and Local Government

•Budget reduced by 33% in real terms by 2014-15
•Size of department and number of arm's length bodies reduced
•Further £1.6bn a year devolved to local government

Frank McKenna, chairman of Downtown in Business: "While the cuts are regrettable, the spending review has at least given us a framework for growth and we now have a clear strategy which allows us to move forward without uncertainty. By maintaining investment in transport and infrastructure with the Liverpool to Manchester rail electrification getting the go-ahead, there is significant potential for growth in the North West. News that funding will be ploughed into science and green technologies is also very welcome as the region is already well placed to develop in this sector."