Did the Treasury over-step the mark in coalition negotiations?

The Treasury fed “advice” into the coalition negotiations between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, according to David Laws.

The Chief Secretary told me in an interview that the Treasury told the Lib Dems (and the Conservatives – though they’d already decided their position on the matter): “£6bn [cuts this year] would not be a risk to the recovery.”

“We had advice, at that time… at the negotiations,” he said.

The Treasury is only meant to advise the government, at that stage still Labour. Is it possible that in the scrupulously and smoothly run negotiations, Whitehall, enthusiatic for a settlement to the constitutional hiatus, eager to help the smooth-running of negotiations in any way it could, over-stepped the mark?

You can hear David Laws’ answers here:

The Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell was clear from the beginning that civil servants were at coalition talks “to facilitate” and “not to advise”. Everyone was operating in circumstances they hadn’t experienced before and you have to say it all ran amazingly smoothly. But lessons will no doubt be learned and I wonder if this might be one of them.