08 February 2008
Value for money is the glue that will hold the government's delivery plans together over the next three years, a senior mandarin said last week.
Sam Woods, value-for-money team leader at the Treasury, said that £30bn worth of funding needed to be generated by value-for-money gains. That amounts to more than half of the £51bn in additional spending that will come on stream by 2010/11.
'If we fail to deliver it's going to be painfully obvious,' Woods told the National Audit Office's performance measurement conference on January 31.
'Value for money is the glue that's holding the whole thing together.'
The £30bn in efficiency savings by 2010/11 was the most challenging target yet, he said. Outlining the Treasury's strategy, Woods said it was imperative to produce the savings set out for both the 2004 Spending Review period, now coming to an end, and the one due to start later this year. 'If we fail to do that we might as well go home.'
He added that a constant drive for further savings must be kept up and a strong value-for-money culture embedded in all parts of the public sector.
Looking solely for efficiency gains in specific spending areas was a limited approach and there was a need to look at value for money across the public sector as a whole.
Looking to future Spending Reviews, Woods suggested that departments that do a lot of processing work, such as the Department for Work and Pensions and Revenue & Customs, could be subject to a different set of performance measurements than complex areas such as health.
'We have been wondering whether there is a case for approaches that are more tailored to different parts of the public services. I must say I'm absolutely not committing us to this course. We haven't even discussed it with ministers,' Woods said, adding that the Treasury was open to ideas.
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