The Independent Budget Review

Achieving cuts in public expenditure without dramatically affecting standards of service will require innovative thinking. CAS is concerned that short term cuts will hit services before they have the opportunity to develop new approaches for protecting frontline services with reduced resource. The welfare system is likely to be significantly affected by public sector cuts. In the future, there may be a move to means testing what are currently universal benefits. This is of great concern and potentially excludes many of those most in need.