Whitehall beat its £8bn savings target, says Maude

3 Jun 13
The government is on the way to managing its finances as well as the best-run FTSE 100 companies, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said today as he announced that Whitehall exceeded its savings target last year by 25%.

By Vivienne Russell | 3 June 2013

The government is on the way to managing its finances as well as the best-run FTSE 100 companies, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said today as he announced that Whitehall exceeded its savings target last year by 25%.

Led by the Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and Reform Group, Whitehall found savings of £10bn, surpassing the £8bn target set after the 2010 general election. It follows savings of £5.5bn in 2011/12 and £3.75bn in 2010/11.

Of the £10bn in savings: £3.8bn comes from joint procurement of goods and services and stricter controls on the use of consultants; £3.4bn from reduced headcount and reforms to civil service pensions; £1.7bn from reviewing large-scale projects and stripping out inefficiencies; and £1.1bn from improving online services and more efficient use of property.

Maude said: ‘This government is taking radical decisions to make Whitehall leaner and more efficient so Britain can compete in the global race. Civil servants across government are changing the ways they work and we are on the way to managing our finances like the best-run FTSE 100 businesses.

‘The unprecedented £10bn savings last year shows we have defied expectations and accelerated the pace of reform. There can be no going back to the old, wasteful ways of doing things which we saw in the past.’

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander added that the June 26 Spending Review would identify a further £5bn of savings. This would be a ‘major contribution’ to reducing the deficit in 2015/16.

The Cabinet Office said the 2012/13 savings were equivalent to almost £600 for every working household in Britain and enough to fund 3 million primary school places or 500 new secondary schools.

However, earlier this year, the National Audit Office warned that many of the savings identified by the Efficiency and Reform Group were unlikely to be sustainable.

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