A cross-Whitehall efficiency crackdown to cut £5.5 billion of wasteful spending was announced by the Chancellor today (Sunday 20 March)
At the request of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak will spearhead a new drive on efficiency, effectiveness and economy in government spending to ensure departments are delivering the highest quality services at the best value.
The crackdown will be driven by a new Chancellor-chaired Efficiency and Value for Money Committee that will ensure the 5% efficiency target set at the 2021 Spending Review is met across Whitehall and scrutinise strategies to prevent fraud and error. The move will save a total of £5.5 billion with the money being pumped directly back into vital public services.
As part of the renewed drive, the Chancellor said the NHS efficiency commitment will double to 2.2% a year - freeing up £4.75 billion to fund NHS priority areas over the next three years.
These savings will be made through a range of programmes including the digitisation of diagnostic and front-line services, which has been shown to reduce cost per admission by up to 13%, improving the efficiency of surgical hubs and developing digital tools to cut time spend by NHS staff on admin tasks.
Surgical hubs improve efficiency by separating emergency and elective care, so more patients can be seen in a given amount of time, improving value for money without impacting patient safety.
This increased efficiency target will ensure that the record funding settlement of £188.9 billion a year by 2024-25 for the Department for Health and Social Care is delivering the best possible value for money for the taxpayer, the money saved will be used to fund front line NHS priorities.
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak said:
The Arm’s Length Body Review will see savings come from better use of property, reduced reliance on consultants, increased digitisation and greater use of shared services, as well as the use of benchmarking to drive efficiencies.
The Treasury will also launch a new Innovation Challenge to crowdsource ideas from civil servants on how government can reduce waste and improve public services, with winners selected this Summer and best ideas becoming Government policy.
This new Committee comes ahead of the Chancellor’s Spring Statement on Wednesday 23rd March where the Chancellor will update Parliament on his plan for the economy in response to the OBR’s latest economic forecasts.
Further Information