Introduction
The demands for health, education, income support and even defence consumes more costs for public spending even as the government is not able or willing to raise more tax thereby resulting in finance deficits through government borrowing. While public spending changed radically and inspired changes in the administrative culture of Whitehall, the difficulties in managing and controlling public spending plagued the Conservative Governments of the 1980s and 1990s as they had affected the administrations of Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan. This chapter examines through a theoretical perspective why modern British governments find it difficult to control public spending centering on the argument of the Treasury's failure to achieve both short-term and medium-term objectives for public spending set by successive governments through the years 1976 to 1993. Treasury Expenditure Controllers and senior staff in the Finance Divisions of the spending department were interviewed to verify the interpretation of events as the research progressed.
Keywords: Britain, Treasury, Expenditure Controllers, public spending, taxes, Conservative Government, Wilson, Callaghan
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