Now that politicians are facing up to the reality of the fiscal situation, it is a good time to examine opportunities for progressive reform in the tough financial environment – the ‘age of austerity’ – that is likely to dominate in the public sector for much of the next decade.

This report does just that: ippr commissioned experts from different fields each to look at one aspect of the problem or one area of public spending. Each contributor was asked to look at one aspect of the problem or one area of public spending and to identify opportunities for contributions to reducing the deficit that would not damage progressive aims. The idea was to see if common themes would emerge that could help frame the deficit reduction process, rather than to come up with a ‘top ten’ list of spending cuts, or to comprehensively examine every aspect of public spending in the search for savings.