Consultancy cuts help coalition’s savings
By Alex Stevenson Follow @alex__stevenson
The biggest contributor to the coalition's efficiency savings drive was a cut in consultancy costs typically used to make civil servants more efficient, it has emerged.
Figures from the Cabinet Office released today revealed the coalition managed to find efficiency savings totalling £3.75 billion in its first ten months in power.
The major drive to locate areas where the government could achieve cash savings, which have been independently audited, managed to save about the same revenue as that from 1p of income tax.
Cutting down consulting costs, typically used to improve the efficiency of the government's proposals, was the biggest contributor, saving £870 million.
Renegotiated deals with some of the largest suppliers to government saved £800 million, while cutbacks in spending on temporary agency staff saved nearly £500 million.
"Today's figures show that our ambitious targets to cut waste and save money have paid off," Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said.
"To put £3.75 billion into context, it’s equivalent to the salaries of 200,000 junior nurses; or 150,000 secondary school teachers; it could pay for several Whitehall departments; and it's about the same as the revenue derived from one penny of the basic rate of income tax."
Ministers have repeatedly argued that the negative impact on public services of spending cuts could be mitigated by efforts to bear down on excessive spending.
The government is seeking to reduce the public spending deficit to manageable levels by the end of the parliament. It stood at £163 billion before the general election.
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