George Osborne, shadow chancellor, says a Conservative government would radically restructure a ‘rather dysfunctional’ Treasury and scale back the department’s Whitehall empire and shake up its much criticised policymaking function, he said.

Osborne believes Gordon Brown damaged the Treasury by using it as an 'imperial power base'.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Osborne detailed plans which refocus the Treasury on its function of holding other departments’ spending to account. As chancellor, Osborne said, he would seek to change the ‘squash every department’ approach to micro-managing the rest of Whitehall which the Treasury had adopted under Gordon Brown’s chancellorship.

The shake-up of the Treasury will form a core element of the Conservatives’ preparations for government.

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