A confidential document presented to the Cabinet in January 2006 asks: "We've spent all this money, but what have we got for it?"
It warns that the efficiency of the public sector needed to improve rapidly and insisted that "spending growth will slow". The document drafted by civil servants also says that "ineffective spending" must be "closed down".
However, Gordon Brown discarded the advice and embarked on a £90 billion increase in spending when he became prime minister.
The expenditure meant that the economy was left facing a record deficit as the effects of the recession were felt.
The document is among 19 papers disclosed today by The Daily Telegraph that were obtained from the personal files of Mr Balls, the shadow Chancellor. They follow the divulgence yesterday of dozens of documents detailing Mr Balls's central role in a plot to topple Tony Blair. Read on and comment » | Robert Winnett, James Kirkup and Holly Watt | Friday, June 10, 2011
