The Conservative Party has explained how it plans to make efficiency savings worth £6bn in the current financial year if it wins power at the general election.
Today, the party’s efficiency adviser Sir Peter Gershon (pictured) said these savings could be made by taking steps including tougher controls on recruitment and stopping major spending on IT projects. The freeze on recruitment – which the party says is targeted at not replacing staff that leave – would free up the government to sell off unused buildings.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats said the …

The government is committed to setting up property vehicles by April 2011 to enable it to make up to £70bn savings from its estate, as it set out last year in its Operational Efficiency Programme.
Chancellor Alistair Darling announced government plans to set up these “strategic property vehicles” by next April in his Budget on Wednesday.
The government wants to manage public sector properties better to save £5bn a year in running costs and sell £20bn of central government property by 2020, under targets in the Operational Efficiency Programme report by Labour …

The government plans to scrap 150 quangos as part of its reform of arm’s length bodies, announced in today’s Budget.
Liam Byrne, chief secretary to the Treasury, revealed that the government would cut 20% of the UK’s quangos by 2012-13 in a bid to save up to £500m a year in public spending.
The announcement is the result of a review of arm’s length bodies that was launch in the summer of 2009 as part of the public value programme. Among the recommendations made in the final report, Reforming Arm’s Lengh Bodies, …

Whitehall departments will need to make savings on the £220bn that the government spends each year procuring goods and services under a new regime of targets that is due to start this spring.
Today, Treasury body the Office of Government Commerce – which is tasked with saving public money by promoting efficiency in the public services – launched its Policy Through Procurement Action Plan. The aim is to get tough on waste from government departments and use procurement to advance three policy agendas:

To  lower the barriers for small and medium-sized enterprises …

The government Property Unit has started to look at how it could make savings from the £370bn public sector property portfolio to help plug large holes in the public finances.
This week, the unit started looking at how it could use opportunities such as selling off properties, managing properties more efficiently, and putting public property into companies that could be listed on the London Stock Exchange. It is expected to take the unit at lease three months of investigation before it comes up with its initial conclusions.
The Property Unit is part …

Councils need to cut annual spending by £11bn over the next four financial years, the Local Government Association has warned.
Speaking at the LGA’s annual conference yesterday, the association’s finance director Stephen Jones attempted to spell out the scale of cuts that would be needed to address a public sector annual budget deficit that could hit a record of £200bn in 2009/10 . He said £11bn would need to be cut from spending on services including schools, policing and roads each year.
This £11bn is more than 10% of the £105bn local authorities spend …