Budget: What would you cut?
Continue reading the main storyChancellor George Osborne is due to deliver his Spending Review on Wednesday 20 October, after the government set itself cutting the budget deficit as a priority.
The June 2010 Budget said that departmental spending would have to be cut by £50bn a year by 2014-15, compared with 2010-11 levels.
See if you can make those cuts in the deficit by using the sliders below to trim spending in various departments. Examples are provided for illustration only. Concentrate on 'amount saved' to meet the target and try to reach £50bn.
We don't know where the real cuts will fall yet, so the 'equivalent to' column does not indicate where the government will actually make cuts. Not all the savings will come from department spending. For example, the government has ring fenced health spending and the international aid budget. (Below the graphic are details of how we did this.)
Notes
1. This tool is a rough and ready calculator. It doesn't take into account the subtleties of budget cuts such as knock-on effects on employment, etc. For full coverage of the budget see our special report .
2. The figures come from the last government's
3. How it works: we've taken each spending area budget, worked out the value of a single percentage point, ie, 1/100th of that budget, then, using official figures, given an example that is representative of spending in that area. For example, the defence budget is 拢40bn. One percentage point equivalent is 拢400m, which is equal to the annual cost of employing 8,723 average lowest ranked service men and women across the army, RAF, Navy and Marines.
4. See for more detail on how we made the calculations.
* Other includes spending on general government expenditure, recreation, culture, religion, agriculture, and industry.
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