In order to achieve the deficit target for 2013 without affecting social payments (which in this second scenario will stay at their baseline levels), the other primary current expenditure items will need to decrease on average by around 3 per cent annually in real terms.
Efforts to contain outlays in the years to come must therefore be extremely incisive: in the ten years 1999-2008 primary current expenditure recorded an average annual increase of 2.1 per cent in real terms. It should be noted that over the last decade the average growth in expenditure was 1.5 points greater than projected for the following year in the Forecasting and Planning Reports.