Treasury announces £1.25bn DCLG cuts

Last week the Chancellor George Osborne and Chief Secretary David Laws announced that they would set out plans to cut £6.2 billion of Government spending this financial year. Today they set out the details of these savings. 

1.2bn cut for Local Government
Local government will be charged with making £1.2bn in in-year cuts with the Department for Communities and Local Government hit by a further £780m. Mr Laws said as part of £6.25bn in cuts from public spending in 2010-11, DCLG would come up with £780m in cuts and local government would be asked to contribute £1.165bn in savings.

He added that rather than simply asking departments to find savings, the Treasury had actually “cut the departments budgets”, so there was no question of whether the savings would actually be delivered or not.

Mr Laws added that the aim was to send a “shockwave” through departments to ensure a “step change” in behaviour across Whitehall.

In other headline measures, Mr Laws said the Child Trust Fund programme would be scrapped as would the Future Jobs Fund, a £1bn council-led job creation fund for the youth unemployed, which laws said provided “low value for money”.

Along with the cuts to DCLG and local government, other departmental cuts were also announced along with news that the Cabinet Office and Treasury will join forces to reduce waste. The savings will be driven by the Efficiency and Reform Group

Full details of the announcement

Cabinet Office & Treasury to Join Forces

Further covereage

New Government First 100 ICT Days Checklist

Public Technology.net suggests the challenges facing whoever takes the reins of the next  Government for their first 100 ICT Days.

Topics include:

- NHS National Programme for IT
- Cloud Computing
- Outsourcing
- Where to allocate budget
- Data Access
- Public/Private sector relationship
- Procurement
- E-voting

Full article click here

The finalists for the 14 categories in the 2010 MJ Local Government Achievement Awards have now been announced on their website. 
 
From the finalists in each category a winner will be announced at our gala awards night on Thursday 24 June 2010 at the Hilton Hotel on London’s Park Lane hosted by TV presenter, political pundit and former Cabinet minister Michael Portillo.

Congratulations to all the finalists - best of luck on the evening!

Link
The MJ 2010 Achievement Award Finalists

How to Save £70bn in the Public Sector!

An article in the April issue of Management Today tackles the issues surrounding making savings in the UK Public Sector. 

Extracted from the book 'Driving Down Cost: How to manage and cut costs - intelligently' by Andrew Wileman, and entitled "How to trim the fat..." the article attempts to address the public sector challenges and identifies six possible areas where savings totalling £70bn could be made. It will be interesting to gauge the response to some of the suggestions from those within the sector - watch this space!

Six areas of saving:

1. Privatisations and disposals of Government Assets
2. Investment deferral
3. Revenue-raising offsets
4. External purchases
5. Redistribution and social protection
6. Reduction in staff costs

Read the full article here

Research Report: Government Must Safeguard Investment in Public Service IT

Research from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, shows that its members believe government should accelerate investment in public service IT, and not cut it, according to 62% of respondents.

63% believe that IT and the internet are improving the delivery of public services. A similar number (60%) indicated that still more could be done for this to translate in to improved efficiencies for both local and national government.

The report also claims 59% of members felt the public fail to recognise the improvements in public services the IT industry has delivered, despite the fact that over half of respondents (55%) believe that IT and the internet are improving citizens’ rights and freedoms. The Institute’s Savvy Citizens campaign, aims to help the public recognise the value of information, and IT, plus how they access, use and manage it in their daily lives.

Elizabeth Sparrow, President, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, said: “It’s clear from this research that our members feel strongly that the value of IT and the internet in the lives of citizens, and how they access and use public services, should not be overlooked."

Links
Full Report
Savvy Citizens Campaign

OPENRevenues Customers Recognised at LGC Awards

Civica OPENRevenues customers were amongst the "winners" and "highly commendeds" at the LGC Awards 2010. Congratulations to all the teams involved but especially to:

North West Leicestershire DC - highly commended "Finance Team of the Year"
Waverley BC - highly commended "Standards & Ethics"
Hull City Council - winner "Most improved Council of the Year"
Sunderland City Council - winner "Innovation"

For a full list of winners, photos from the evening and details on how to enter for next year please click here

Budget 2010: One Stop Shop

As the initial round of debate begins to settle on the last budget before the General Election, we've put together some of the most relevent data and related releases to impact on our sector. Please click the links below for further details:

General Facts, Stats & Comment
Budget 2010: the key points
Budget 2010 in graphics
Budget 2010 - public sector and public spending highlights
Action being taken in your area - an interactive map
IRRV Comment: Changes to the Small Business Rate Relief

Government Departments
DWP Delivers Efficiency and Smarter Government Savings
CLG contribution to operational efficiency and smarter government savings
Govt departments line up for ICT cutbacks -but IT "key to overall objective"

Council Finances
Councils must deliver £2.1bn fresh savings
Ring-fencing removed on £1.3bn of council cash
Young Persons Guarantee extension to create 35,000 placements
Budget ring fencing fails to deliver for public services - Chief Executive of LGiU