Public Finance Procedures. ESRI Memorandum Series No. 147 1981

The painful measures needed to restore order in the public finances are causing more and more people to regret that the Exchequer was ever allowed to get into such imbalance. Hopefully, this will convince them of the need to establish procedures which will help to ensure that the public finances do not so readily drift into disorder again. The proposals contained in the recent Government White Paper, A Better Way to Plan the Nation's Finances, represent a significant attempt to achieve just this. In my view, the general intent of these proposals deserves to be welcomed, not only by those concerned about sound finance but by all, whether from the right or the left, who value the preservation of democracy. To justify this view I propose, before critically examining the details of the proposals, to explain the far-reaching implications of the problem to which the proposals are addressed