Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak to make Treasury ‘new radicals’ in spending shake up
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Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are set to transform the Treasury’s approach to public spending by prioritising high-risk, high-growth projects.
Chief secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay will give a speech next week that outlines plans to operate the Treasury like a Silicon Valley firm by choosing projects that “move quickly, start small and fail fast”.
The Sunday Telegraph reports that Barclay will make the speech at an event for the think tank Onward and will describe the Treasury as “the new radicals”.
The new approach would look to spend on projects that could quickly improve on the UK’s infrastructure, roads and energy in line with Johnson’s “levelling up” agenda.
At the heart of the plans will be a push to identify and approve projects at a fast pace.
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Johnson and Sunak’s plan will mark a large change in ideology at the Treasury, which has traditionally been more cautious in its public spending ambitions.
Barclay has reportedly hired a team of analysts and developers from Silicon Valley to advise the department on how to invest more like a private sector tech company.
He is expected to tell Onward that the Treasury’s planned spending review will be a “review in which we think differently about what government is, what it does and how it does it”.
He is also expected to say that the Treasury will become a “department that marshals together people, ideas and best practice, from inside and outside government to make things happen”.
It comes after Sunak said earlier this year that he would review the Treasury’s Green Book, which guides how the Treasury spends public money.
The changes are expected to allow for economically deprived areas of the UK to see a greater benefit from government projects.