ABSTRACT

The concern of this chapter is to provide a framework for analysing the processes of public expenditure decisions during the 1990s. Although any attempt to provide a forecast as to the likely outcome of such decisions would be a hazardous occupation, nevertheless there are lessons to be learned from the past that can at least be used as signposts to the future. The study of public expenditure for the 1970s and 1980s raises issues that will continue to have an influence on public expenditure. In the preceding chapters it was suggested that public expenditure outcomes were influenced by two factors: the process of continuity and the dimension of politics and choice. Changes in public expenditure reflected not only the durability of some expenditure programmes but also the day-to-day political process and the autonomy of governments to bring about change. Public expenditure was described as a process reflecting events that could be perceived as being not within the immediate sphere of government.