The prevailing approaches to retrenchment are across-the-board-cuts, voluntary attrition, and expenditure deferment. Frequently these are adopted because they are expedient, but they do not represent a sensitive response to citizen priorities. The paper presents a procedure for allocating resources during periods of retrenchment, so they reflect citizens' wants and needs. The procedure consists of four sequential stages: (1) identifying those services that should be considered as possible candidates for retrenchment; (2) evaluating each of these services to determine if retrenchment is appropriate; (3) retrenchment implementation; and (4) facilitating the implementation decision.
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