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Treasury officials have been collating a long list of decisions on public services that require urgent attention, but it is not yet finalised. <\/p>\n
The new government will suggest its predecessor left various crucial public services unfunded in areas from public pay to prisons.<\/p>\n
“On Monday, the British public are finally going to see the true scale of the damage the Conservatives have done to the public finances,” a Labour source said.<\/p>\n
“They spent taxpayers\u2019 money like no tomorrow because they knew someone else would have to pick up the bill. It now falls to Labour to fix the foundations of our economy and that work has already begun.”<\/p>\n
On Monday, Ms Reeves will also set out the government\u2019s response to the public sector pay recommendations, which are about 3% higher than in current spending plans<\/p>\n
The chancellor is likely to accept some above-inflation pay settlements for public sector workers after being warned by independent pay bodies about recruitment and retention challenges, and calculating that the public is keen to draw a line under months of rolling strikes.<\/p>\n
Cabinet ministers have spent the week saying a thorough look at their departmental books has revealed more “severe” problems than previously anticipated. <\/p>\n
The opposition says this is an elaborate effort to butter up the public for some tax rises at the Budget in the autumn.<\/p>\n
The “black hole” arises because the government says it must spend extra money to keep public services functioning.<\/p>\n
However, governments draw up their own rules on how much they should borrow to fund public services like the NHS and how the country\u2019s debt is managed.<\/p>\n
The extra money the government needs to find to meet self-imposed targets around debt in the future has been labelled the “black hole”.<\/p>\n
The former chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, may have instead suggested not spending these sums. <\/p>\n
Mr Hunt acknowledged to the BBC this week that he would not have been able to fund immediate tax cuts, had the Conservatives won the election.<\/p>\n
Some economists suggested during the election that many of these spending pressures, and the possibility taxes would need to be raised to fund them, were obvious and should have been made clear to the voting public.<\/p>\n
While the BBC understands there will be no tax policy announcements on Monday, the implication of the audit is that the Treasury will spend the summer trying to find extra savings, or extra taxation revenue, to fill this \u201cblack hole\u201d. <\/p>\n
A more optimistic economic outlook from the independent forecaster the Office for Budget Responsibility would also help improve some tricky trade-offs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/picture><\/span>Reuters<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n