Chancellor could have saved £9bn, claims PAC chair

23 Oct 09
Public Accounts Committee chair Edward Leigh has berated the chancellor for not heeding his advice on efficiency savings
By David Williams

23 October 2009

Public Accounts Committee chair Edward Leigh has berated the chancellor for not heeding his advice on efficiency savings.

In an open letter to Alistair Darling, Leigh estimated that the government could have saved £9bn by implementing PAC recommendations. He said Whitehall staffing cuts alone could save £2.5bn, while a further £1.3bn could be saved if departments compared their operating costs to identify potential efficiencies.  

He also highlighted the spending cuts planned to bring down government debt, and criticised the Treasury’s Operational Efficiency Programme for making slow progress in realising savings.

‘The biggest challenge is translating aspiration into action,’ Leigh wrote.

‘At present, the government answer our recommendations on specific reports and the National Audit Office works with the relevant department to identify the financial savings attributable to our work.  

‘But there is little evidence of our recommendations being used as a spur to action across government, despite the fact that they are often replicable at a number of departments,’ he said.

‘The formal government responses to our reports address our recommendations in turn, but do not pick up on their wider implications.’

Over the past two Parliaments, PAC recommendations on specific investigations could have saved the government more than £4bn, said Leigh. If these changes were applied more widely, these savings could be more than doubled, he estimated.

The October 22 letter said savings could be made though better financial management, better information management, improving processes, making better use of government purchasing power and by improving performance.

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