KWASI Kwarteng has told his Treasury officials to “focus on entirely on growth” as he prepares for next week’s emergency mini-budget to address the cost-of-living crisis.

The Chancellor told staff in a conference call that he wanted to prioritise returning to growth rates of 2.5 per cent a year, despite forecasts of an imminent recession.

According to the Financial Times, Mr Kwarteng also reassured staff he didn't plan to overhaul the Treasury after sacking its top official on his first day on the job.

Permanent Secretary Tom Scholar was ousted for being part of the “Treasury orthodoxy” that Liz Truss repeatedly attacked in her Tory leadership campaign.

Mr Kwarteng was reported to have praised Sir Tom’s record and said the Treasury had been an “excellent finance ministry”, but also indicated a change of direction from that of his predecessor, after Rishi Sunak.

“He said there was a need to do things differently under fresh leadership,” one official told the Financial Times.

The UK Government is set to hold an emergency budget next week amid soaring inflation driven by the war in Ukraine.

The “fiscal event” is expected on Thursday or Friday, before the Commons goes into recess for the party conference season.

The PM uses the term “fiscal event” rather than budget, as budgets require the independent Office for Budget Responsibility to go over the numbers.

Ms Truss promised during the Tory leadership race she would make £30billion of tax cuts if she won, and the occasion will be the moment to deliver on that.

She and Mr Kwarteng are expected to use the statement to reverse April’s 1.25% rise in national insurance and axe the 19 to 25% rise in corporation tax due next year.

The pair are also under pressure to explain in far more detail how their £100billion plan to cap domestic energy bills at an average £2,500 for two years will work.

Businesses are also seeking more information on vaguer promises to help them cope with runaway energy bills, which are currently uncapped.

The chairman of the Night Time Industries Association warned seven out of 10 pubs could close this winter without Government help with soaring bills.

Sacha Lord said: “I think we are now entering probably the most critical week for my industry in my lifetime. My phone is red hot and people at the end of their tether.”

Mr Lord, who is also night time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, said businesses were already going under “on a daily basis” and were “sat in limbo” ahead of next week’s mini-budget.

Ms Truss sketched out the energy plan last Thursday, but it will was immediately put on the backburner by the death of the Queen.

In his conference call, Mr Kwarteng said that if the UK could return to the trend rate of 2.5% GDP growth it would make cutting the deficit easier long-term.

However the rate has not been that since before the global financial crash of 2008-09, and most chancellors have found talking about growth far easier than delivering it.

Artificially accelerating the economy to create a pre-election boom could also worsen inflation, which is already at 10.1% and expected to climb yet higher today.

Former Treasury minister Lord Agnew, who quit in January over the “woeful” failure of the business department to tackle Covid-related fraud, today wrote in the Times that the removal of Sir Tom Scholar as Treasury permanent secretary “should be a cause for celebration”.

He wrote: “Having worked in his department for nearly two years I saw at first hand the malign influence of the Treasury orthodoxy at play.

"Whether it was foot-dragging and passive resistance to creating a Treasury office in the north (Darlington), which he fiercely resisted, or the botched arrangements in the construction of the bounce back loans during the pandemic, all roads led back to him. It is not surprising to hear cries of dismay at his dismissal from an echo chamber of former mandarins, because that is what they mostly are: a metropolitan elite with their own self-reinforcing prejudices.”

He urged Ms Truss to take responsibility for driving growth away from the Treasury as it “has no idea how to deliver this”.

He said: “The system obsesses about measuring inputs, counting out the money distributed to departments, but has little clue of how to measure outcomes.

“Departments are infantilised in their management of money, with savings being automatically clawed back to the centre.

“This of course removes any incentive to think innovatively, creatively or cost-effectively.”

SNP Deputy First Minister John Swinney has said he will run an emergency budget review of his own on the back of the UK version, with "hard choices" likely.

Last week he announced £500million of spending cuts to cope with double-digit inflation eroding the Holyrood budget for 2022/23, and public sector pay hikes costing £700m.

Mr Swinney, the acting finance secretary while Kate Forbes is on maternity leave, also warned of more “hard choices” once the UK figures were known.