XN000022-1974-10-16 — Page 83

39

Wednesday, October 16, 1974

alarming about this in itself.

However, all in all, the

circumstances in which we now are, require us to adopt

a prudent and careful approach to expenditure in the following

years. I am particularly concerned at the trend of recurrent expenditure which has been rising at a rate of not far short of 20% annually in recent years. I doubt whether it need be as high as this if we in the public service were as productivity-conscious as our counterparts in industry.

But

it is on our capital works programmes that I wish to concentrate

today..

You will remember that earlier this year the Financial

Secretary, having reviewed departmental estimates and

..

forecasts relating to capital works of all sorts, told us that,

after allowing for all additional resources from the borrowing

and taxation that he considered realistic, there was a short-fall of $1960 m., or 1/5 of the total estimates for the forecast period from 1975/76 to '77/78 inclusive. Having regard to

the nature of the departmental estimates as I have described them, there was nothing very daunting about this discrepancy,

and during the succeeding months the Secretariat has system-

atically subjected them to scrutiny and the imposition of orders of priority. In this process one of the priorities has been to ensure progress on housing and the new towns, and in practice a balance has also been held between spending on

the new towns and in the old urban areas. But having accorded

housing and new towns a priority of their own, it was also · decided that a very high priority should go to projects which

I

:

/facilitate the