Pre-election spending plan check runs into trouble

The traditional pre-election check on the financial implications of political party spending plans is causing controversy this year because the agency which carries out the research opposes civil service cuts, the Telegraaf reports on Thursday.

The government’s macro-economic forecasting agency CPB is refusing to approve the Christian Democrats’ and VVD Liberals plans to save billions of euros on civil service salaries, the paper says, quoting inside sources.
The CDA and VVD both want to tie civil service pay to inflation, which they say would save €2.25bn on pay rises. But CPB sources told the paper the plan is not realistic.
Other proposals

And the CPB has also ruled out numerous other proposals to get government spending under control, the paper claims.
CPB accountants and statisticians are still looking at the manifestos and no publication date for their reports has been set.
All the parties have included packages of spending cuts in their manifestos, ranging from €10bn to €29bn over up to eight years.
The CPB checks are supposed to help voters decide how realistic the different parties’ spending plans are.