The spending review sounds good, but we've heard it all before

We are placing our public services under pressure because they cannot get enough skilled staff. We are building the wrong kind of houses in the wrong places and failing to tackle urban decay. All too often housing benefit is funding the provision of unfit housing to the detriment of the tenant and the benefit of the landlord. This is unacceptable.

"Goodness me," I hear you cry, "whatever happened to good old BBC objectivity? I do hope he gives the government an opportunity to respond to such a damning indictment of their policies over the past five years."

But there is no need. The words are not mine. This harsh critique comes from none other than the deputy prime minister himself, as he set out housing policy in England over the next few years. With a candour unusual among politicians, he also confessed that a target he had set to build homes at the rate of 23,000 a year in London and 39,000 a year in the wider South-east had not been met.

So this time, is he going to ensure that the 200,000 homes mentioned are actually built in the South-east? Well, not exactly. What he said was: "We estimate that at least 200,000 homes could be created in the growth areas." A subtle, but important, difference.

Likewise, he was careful not to say how much he could spend on expanding affordable housing. There will be more money to provide homes for key workers and there will be more money for social housing to tackle another perennial policy failure – thousands of families in bed and breakfast accommodation. But at this stage he was leaving no hostages to fortune – there would be "further detailed consideration about how best to use the new money available."

His caution is justified. This policy may represent the sea change he describes but, like all the other areas of public sector reform, if there are benefits to be derived they will not be fast in coming. It is also worth remembering that this is the third spending review, but to listen to the chancellor you could be forgiven for thinking it was the first. Certainly, his statement to the Commons was remarkably similar to the one he gave in 2000, and that was remarkably similar to the one he gave in 1998.

Is Prescott actually going to ensure that the 200,000 homes mentioned are actually built in the South-east? Well, not exactly

Each time he announces that he is going to transform the public services, that it will take time, and that decades of underinvestment has left them in a parlous state. He goes on to say that he is pumping in large amounts of money but that extra resources alone will not do the trick. Only by combining investment and reform will all turn out well. Each time he says all this, expectations rise.

The Conservatives seem to be suffering from a similar form of amnesia. "By all means pump in more money," they cry, "but not until we have radical reform." Yet they do not explain why there should be a need for radical reform or massive investment as these services were presumably well maintained over the 18 years they were in office. Nor, at this stage, can they tell us what their idea of reform entails.

As for the rest of the political tribe, they seem to be hedging their bets – welcoming the investment (after all, it may work …) while condemning centralisation (… but it may not). So what are we to make of it all? Overall, the rise in spending amounts to just 2% of national income – we will still have lower public spending levels than during some of the Conservative years (although some of that was unproductive debt repayment). So whereas the extra sums every year are likely to make a difference, they should not be regarded as life-transforming.

In education there will be 6% more every year, and health is to get about 7.5% more. Housing and Mr Prescott were rewarded with £1.5bn – equivalent to about 5% more a year. Many will regard that as good stuff and a chance to further improve the quality of the housing stock – in this prosperous time, it also makes sense. But any changes are likely to be gradual and modest, which may be why Prescott was not so full of promises.