Spending Review 2010
Chancellor George Osborne has delivered his long-awaited Comprehensive Spending Review. Check here for all the news.News on the Spending Review from NCE magazine
Consultants rack up £32M in five months from government
Civils consultants earned £32M from central government between the beginning of May and the end of September, according to official figures released this week.
Cabinet Office orders civils firms to cut rates and repay fees
Britain’s biggest civils firms were fuming this week after being ordered in to the Cabinet Office and told to repay cash already earned and offer massive discounts on work in the pipeline as part of the government’s efficiency drive.
Aquatics Centre costs up
Design delays and problems maintaining internal air temperatures could increase the cost of the London 2012 Aquatics Centre by £11M the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) said this week.
Mixed reaction after roads worth £2.3bn are shelved
Contractors this week gave a mixed response to transport secretary Philip Hammond’s decision to postpone work on a further £1bn of road schemes, including a number of managed motorways schemes.
The modern world is more complex, but innovation remains key
So we’ve survived the Comprehensive Spending Review and now have the National Infrastructure Plan as a unique and positive commitment to infrastructure investment as an economic driver.
Government promises to unblock project planning
Senior civil servants this week pledged to remove planning obstacles to new major infrastructure projects by the end of the year as it published its first broad commitment to a long term infrastructure investment plan.
Spending review 2010: Roads are losers as Osborne favours rail
The government made clear its preference for rail investment over road improvements in last week’s spending review.
Spending Review as it happened
Spending review live: £30bn for transport; Crossrail go but delayed; massive cuts in local government; capital roads spend halved; £1bn for CCS; waste PFIs scrapped
Chancellor George Osborne has said that over the next four years £30bn will be spent on transport projects, but has signalled a grim four years for local government.
Latest news on the spending review
£3bn transport fund announced
Transport minister Norman Baker has announced the money each local authority in England would be getting for transport schemes and for road maintenance.
Olympic budget may fall by £29M
Buildings and infrastructure costs for the London 2012 Games may go down by £29M to £7.2bn, according to official figures.
Government fixes dates for key infrastructure decisions
Consultation on plans to reform of the electricity market by introducing a carbon price to encourage low carbon generation is to begin next month, the government confirmed this week.
Contractors "deeply regret" roads cuts; future of Managed Motorways uncertain
The Highways Agency’s capital budget has been slashed in half in chancellor George Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review.
Seven waste projects lose PFI credits in spending review - minister hints EfW to blame
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has announced that as part of its Comprehensive Spending Review settlement it is withdrawing funding for seven waste PFI projects – saving the government £26M by 2017-18- because they “will no longer be needed to meet landfill diversion targets set by the European Union”.
Transport for London spared from major cuts
Transport for London (TfL) has survived the Comprehensive Spending Review with less than an 8% cut in planned capital spending, but road spending has been badly hit.
Crossrail delays full opening for a year to protect scope and save costs
London mega-project Crossrail will be delivered a year late in a bid to protect the full scope of the scheme from government spending cuts.
Local government facing massive cuts
Local government budgets have been slashed in chancellor George Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review
Rail spending safe with Crossrail and key Tube upgrades protected
Network Rail spending to 2014 has survived the spending review almost unscathed, along with London’s Crossrail and key Tube upgrades.
Osborne commits up to £1bn for carbon capture and storage
Chancellor George Osborne has said up to £1bn will be set aside for the “world’s first carbon capture and storage demonstration project” and a further £1bn pumped into a Green Investment Bank.
Cuts watch
Poor value PFI deals 'must be axed'
A spending watchdog has told the Government it must cancel or renegotiate PFI contracts if they are not good value.
Spending Review at a glance
How the CSR impacts on civil engineering: a good day for major infrastructure projects in the UK – but a less good day for the general management of local authority assets particularly roads. Big firms likely to fare better than smaller.
Views on the spending review
Osborne has put infrastructure at the heart of economic recovery
As the dust starts to settle on the government’s spending review and the plethora of associated reports filter out, I have to say I’m starting to feel pretty positive about the future for civil engineers.
Comfort in transport-related announcements, says CECA
For months now the spending review has been hyped as a halloween horror story, but for contractors there was some comfort to be found in the transport-related announcements, says Rosemary Beales.
PwC comments on cuts in social housing
While the cuts look significant, none of this is a huge surprise, says Richard Parker, head of housing at PwC.
AA disappointed at drop in flood defence spending
Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance, is concerned that flood defence spending will not be maintained at current levels.
There are winners and losers from the spending review, says Grant Thornton
Despite the trepidation with which the spending review has been awaited the sky has not ‘fallen in’ for the industry as a whole, says Grant Thornton construction partner Kathryn Hiddleston.
TIF inclusion raises interesting questions, says Andrew Yates
Chancellor George Osborne’s commitment to introducing Tax Incremental Financing as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review has raised interesting questions over the shape of the regime in the UK., says Andrew Yates, commercial real estate partner at Berwin Leighton Paisner.
