Contributors from the public and private sectors offer opinions on how best to manage the cuts.

Views include looking at the role of Quangos and Regional Development Agencies to see what policy areas could go to consortia of local authorities.

Using a zero based budget approach with each area starting to build a total place budget for that area.

The NHS taking a root and branch approach to reviewing pathways to care, together with new thinking that would allow more amalgamation away from the front line and more rationalisation and savings in the corporate overhead.

There is also a view that the cuts provide a unique opportunity to drive through organisational change that would have proved almost impossible in better times.

HOW WILL PUBLIC SPENDING CUGS BE MANAGED? is available at http://www.market-talk.co.uk/2010/01/21/how-will-the-inevitable-spending-cuts-in-the-public-sector-be-managed/