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Whitehall spending has become the frontline in the political battle as the major parties line up with pledges to curb public spending. Chief secretary to the Treasury, Yvette Cooper, promised to clamp down on departmental spending in a bid to save £5bn by 2010-11. Ahead of next month's budget, Ms Cooper wrote to fellow ministers, asking for cuts in corporate services and back-office functions. Targets include IT, finance and human resources, as well as 800 semi-independent government bodies. More efficient use of electricity and increasing central procurement are also on the agenda. The current procurement bill alone is £110bn a year. Smaller public bodies will be asked to share back-office functions. The move is in a bid to safeguard frontline jobs while cutting public sector borrowing. It follows a pledge by the Conservatives to reduce the amount of money given to semi-independent government bodies. Party leader, David Cameron, promised to call time on spending by quangos, which increased last year by 12%. Among them are the Environment Agency and the Homes and Communities Agency. In a keynote policy speech, he said: ‘There will be efficiency savings we can and will make. Everyone knows that this government has wasted taxpayers' money on an obscene scale, and I am totally confident that once in government, efficiency savings will not be hard to find.' He also attacked the large salaries of people heading up ‘the vast quango-cracy', and promised to work towards a ‘post-bureaucratic age'. He said: ‘Where money hasn't been so well spent is on the wage bill for those who work behind the frontline, particularly in the vast quangocracy that has mushroomed under Labour. The people in its plum jobs earn frankly astonishing salaries. At a time when private sector employees are accepting pay freezes to keep their jobs, how can this be right?' A Cabinet Office spokesman said the spending increase was due to a rise in public service investment in areas such as education as well as the Olympics.

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WHITEHALL

Parties line up to pledge cuts in public spending

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