Anna Bawden on the public sector efficiency drive

'The Treasury is stubbornly clinging to the notion that more belt-tightening is what's needed.' Photograph: Getty "The waste of plenty is the resource of scarcity". The author Thomas Love Peacock's words may date to 1817, but they have a striking relevance to today's debate on public spending. The government has invested unprecedented sums in public services since 1997, but many argue the billions of pounds poured into schools, hospitals and the police has been wasted. Polls show that while people are noticing improvements in their local public services, especially health (Ipsos Mori says the public's rating of local NHS services are the highest they've been in a long time), they are very negative about Labour's spending record and attitudes seem to be hardening. Some 82% think the extra money put into the NHS since 1997 has... [read full story]