Anybody who has ever worked in the public sector knows that periodic squeezes on spending come with the territory.

These squeezes occur at relatively frequent intervals and are managed by a mixture of improvements in efficiency and cuts in services. Sometimes this work goes on rather quietly behind the scenes — almost invisible to the taxpaying public and users of services — but, more frequently, it is a noisy, messy affair — the stuff of heated public meetings, placards and demonstrations. But the bottom line is that it is managed without the services or the organisations that provide them disintegrating.

All of the leading political parties have warned us of a further squeeze after the approaching general election. However, this time it will be different. Its scale will be far greater and it will last much longer than anything we have experienced before. For example, in comparison, the reductions made in response to the International Monetary Fund crisis in the mid-1970s barely register on the same Richter scale. Far from business as usual, this squeeze will take us into very new and largely uncharted territory.

Politicians, national and local, need to recognise this step-change in the scale of the challenge and its implications. Bigger cuts mean bigger risks. It underlines the significance of the difficult decisions that they must take to balance the books. Not only the headline decisions — which services to protect and which to target for cuts — but also the much more detailed decisions about where the cuts are to fall and how they are to be engineered. Equally important, it focuses attention on the organisations and people who are going to be responsible for delivering these changes.

The smoothness of implementation is a critical variable in this equation. Handled well, it will protect many of the most vulnerable frontline service users and soften the blow. Handled poorly, it will amplify the pain.

It is critically important that politicians have these delivery challenges right at the centre of their planning and risk radar screens. Making announcements about tough choices is the easy bit; implementing them skilfully and with sensitivity across the country is the real challenge and the point at which politicians become heavily dependent upon the skills of public managers and their teams.

Whichever party wins the election it will need the public sector workforce to be ready to play critical roles in delivering their very difficult programmes of change. Smart politicians will look beyond the election and recognise the fundamental importance of this point. Alongside their lists of tough choices, they will have strategies ready for ensuring that the right leadership and change management skills are in place, and for ensuring that the climate is right to get the very best ideas, innovation and performance from frontline teams, whose morale and motivation will have a profound impact on how cuts are presented and how they will affect the general public.

At its most basic, this is about making sure that the delivery machine is fully serviced and ready to swing into effective action.

Public sector staff did not cause this crisis, but they will play a critical role in its resolution.

• Steve Freer is the chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa)

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