Decentralisation opposition hard to figure out

BUDGET 2004 will be long remembered as one that was dominated by an announcement that really should never have been part of a Budget speech.

Amongst all of the speculation ahead of the Budget about what it might or might not contain, nobody to my knowledge had actually mentioned the possibility that a major initiative on decentralisation would be launched, simply because such announcements should not really be part of the Budget day process.

Having said that, it is quite obvious why it was delivered when it was. It distracted attention away from a Budget that had little to offer in terms of policy initiatives, which is not terribly surprising given that most of the spending at the minister’s disposal was pre-empted by prior commitments on social spending, and public sector pay and pensions.