MPs ‘gravely concerned’ about scale of Whitehall savings

A cross-party committee of MPs is ‘gravely concerned’ about the scale of efficiency savings the government is pursuing.

The Committee of Public Accounts warned of the ‘serious risk’ that government departments will rely solely on cutting front-line services in order to meet ‘radical’ cost cutting demands.

It emphasised that the government must learn lessons from the 2007 plan to make savings, which fell behind target and failed to make real savings of 3% a year. ‘Two years into the three-year programme to make £35 billion of cash-releasing savings by 2010-11, savings of only £15 billion were reported. And, of those reported savings, just 38% were definitely legitimate value for money savings’, said Margaret Hodge MP, the committee’s chair.

In its report the committee said there was a risk that the Treasury would reduce departments’ budgets and then ‘walk away from responsibility for the delivery of the level of savings required across government’.

‘This Committee expects efficiency improvements to make a major contribution to the cost reductions now required across government. We also expect the Treasury and departments to learn the lessons from the 2007 value for money programme,’ said Hodge.