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The MJ's readers are well briefed on how problematic DCLG finds it to gather the evidence proving the shortfall in council spending can be plugged. While local authorities face front-loaded cuts totalling 28% over the Spending Review, government departments outside the health, education and international development ring-fences are enacting across-the-board administrative cuts of one-third and budget reductions averaging one-fifth. Absorbing lessons from the recent past, it would be wise to examine where Whitehall will make savings and how they are achieved and measured. Lest we forget, departments managed only £15bn out of £35bn savings promised from 2007's Comprehensive Spending Review. If failure to even reach half-measures wasn't pitiful enough, the NAO identified only 30% of this figure as the genuine, sustainable, cash-releasing savings demanded. Or, in other words, the civil service came short by a whopping 86%. Of course, the present scale of cost-reductions in the current Spending Review has forced departments to look beyond cuts to discretionary spending or operational efficiencies. Locked into delivering coalition policy objectives until 2015, the time demands radical plans capable of achieving priorities based on realistic assessments. But from what straw are these bricks being made? Scrutinising levels of competence in civil service financial management, the NAO last week raised concerns of disconnect among many departmental strategies and resource allocations. Without awareness of true costs and benefits, senior officials are lacking in any sound basis for making informed choices about what activities to continue, change or stop. Time will tell. But present headlines in The Sun newspaper castigating the MoD for shelling out £22 for light-bulbs worth 65p make bigger waves than long-term planning. Confirming a spending round extension to the imposition of central controls over IT, property, advertising, recruitment and consultancy spend, Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, restated the £800m cross-department savings target the Government expects to achieve from renegotiating contracts with big government suppliers. But, beyond this, a reconfiguration of the annual government procurement spend of £192bn is taking place. Mr Maude now expects suppliers to treat government as the country's single biggest customer and deliver scale savings accordingly. In order to maintain the squeeze on bulk-purchasing, the Cabinet Office is taking responsibility for key negotiations and legal disputes. From October energy, office supplies, professional services and travel are among nine categories of common goods which will be procured centrally for departments. To make this happen, Buying Solutions, that unloved and now leaderless trading fund is likely to be absorbed within the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG). John Collington who heads ERG's commercial division is most likely to become the inaugural chief procurement officer in a Whitehall remake of ‘Cheaper by the dozen'. Jonathan Werran is editor of Governetz Public Property

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WHITEHALL

Inside View

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