Downing Street Says » Treasury Savings Announcement

Asked if today’s announcement should have been made to MPs rather than at a press conference, the PMS said that there was a strong need to get on and deal with this problem quickly. The deficit was the biggest priority for this government and they had been committed for some time to the idea of 6 billion of cuts. The important thing was to get on and give departments some clarity as soon as possible.

Asked how many jobs would go as a result of the efficiency cuts announced today, the PMS said that the Treasury had set out details across departments; the objective was to have a recruitment freeze rather than redundancies. We had set budgets today for individual departments and those departments would say more about where they would be making savings. In the most part the savings were about reducing inefficiencies and cutting waste, for example, reducing spend on consultancy costs and reducing the amount of first class travel undertaken by civil servants, none of which would have any impact on jobs in the public sector.

Put that jobs in the private sector could be affected if, for example, departments stopped using outside consultants, the PMS said that the most important thing for jobs in the private sector was that the economy was strong and that growth resumed. The biggest issue facing our economy at the present time was the size of the deficit and tackling that deficit required us to look very hard at the money government departments spent.

Asked what savings Downing Street would make, the PMS said that Downing Street’s budget fell within the Cabinet Office budget.

Asked if the Prime Minister would be travelling first class, the PMS said that he would not comment on the Prime Minister’s travel arrangements.

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According to the British-North America Committee (made up of academics and business leaders), the very generous final salary pensions for all public sector workers including MP’s is costing this country £1.3 trillion!
Surely there is scope there to make savings, such as converting the pensions into money purchase schemes, as most of UK industry has done.
Comment by Maurice Fisher — 8 Jun 2010 on 10:50 am | Link

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» Monday, May 24, 2010

Treasury Savings Announcement

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