Government Savings

Almost without fail each new government has promised significant savings that just don't materialise. The political government has to rely on the executive civil service to implement its planned savings and they have an entrenched position with an equally long tradition of being able to successfully bury each saving plan. How can it be otherwise, all of the reins on the day to day running of the country are firmly in their hands even if they have to nod to the left or to the right depending on the current political flavour.

Realistically we should not even be talking about yet another round of efficiencies, re-locating offices there, cutting a few redundant posts here, using the backs of forms to save paper or not issuing pencils until there is no stub left. What is needed is a systemic fresh look at government.

Government funding is based on annual budgets. Each year proposals are put forward, based on last years budget outturn, for an equal or bigger budget requirement. Who in there right minds would offer a reduced budget? Cuts are then made on these proposals to bring them all into line with the planned spending limits. Then all hell lest loose as each department vies with another to establish the ascendancy of their budget over them. The top civil servants are promoted to their positions because they successfully promote their departments budget and see off others. It has nothing at all to do with how much it actually costs to run government. The status-quo is maintained year by year, minus a few percent, any losses more than made up when 'new' workloads arise out of government initiatives.

What we inherit then is government bloat. Old budgets are fiercely defended by the entrenched civil service, manpower shaved perhaps only to be re-instated plus at the next workload addition and a civil service more than capable of burying cost effective engineering or savings in a deluge of paper.

The only way forward is to utilise the ingenuity of the civil service to re-structure their provision of government services, achieve their own saving targets and earn the consequent reward of additional allocation. This will be a bloody process and as an opening strike the top two tiers of the entire civil service should be made to take retirement! What is needed is a complete overhaul on what and how government services are provided. There is some two hundred years of bloat to cut through. Basic question, what are the bottom line services that a department must inescapably provide and how many persons and acres of floor space are need to service it? Dividing the tasks by the cost of people and floor space gives an indicator of how much of our Nations resources are being used. Then political judgements can flow. What is the cost to the Nation of a soldier, a fighter plane, a teacher, how much does it cost the Nation to raise a each of the different tax levies? Are there any parallels that can be drawn? Might it be better to not provide one service but more of another or even is this service really inescapably needed? In fact what are the roles left to a central government when decision making has been devolved (see - "Working it out together")?

An approach like this will result in a significantly scaled back government and from then on efficiencies that achieve in reducing the cost of provision can be rewarded with commitment to fund a long term programme of investment, providing the further efficiencies promised are delivered.