The DCLG would be the biggest casualty of ‘same trajectory' spending review plans among unprotected Whitehall departments, leading public finance experts have calculated.

Economics think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has today warned Eland House would get a worse settlement because it had previously agreed larger-than-average cuts to its resource budget in the 2010 spending review.

According to the IFS' Green Budget, although ministers plan to allocate cuts for 2015/16 in a similar way to the current spending review, the DCLG is on course to fare ‘relatively badly even relative to other unprotected departments'.

On this basis, the DCLG would see a massive 70% reduction in its communities budget by 2015/16, due in large part to cuts in social housing, the IFS notes. 

The departments for international department, education and health have been promised continued protection from swingeing cuts.  However, unprotected departments -which also include transport, energy and climate change - would have experienced real-term reductions of a third since 2010/11, if the Government maintained these protections over the succeeding two-years of 2016/17 and 2017/18, the economists note.

Paul Johnson, IFS director said the worsening economic performance and forecasts had led the Chancellor to increase borrowing while promising further dramatic public spending cuts in the next parliament.

‘The effects of concentrating all those cuts on currently unprotected areas of public service spending look hard to contemplate,' said Mr Johnson. 

The IFS director suggested taxes could increase and currently protected areas of public spending such as the NHS and pensions could be affected by cuts over the course of the next parliament.