MPs question government 'savings'

There is a "question mark" over almost £10bn in Whitehall savings claimed by the government, MPs have said, reported The BBC.

The Treasury announced last year it had made efficiencies worth £13.3bn but the Commons public accounts committee said most did not "stand up to scrutiny".

Some savings claimed were "not genuine" and some others had been "achieved at the expense of the quality of the service", chairman Edward Leigh said.

But the Treasury said it had made "robust" economies.

The government's efficiency programme, set up in 2004, is designed to achieve savings across the public sector of £21.5bn a year by 2007/08.

The plan includes cutting more than 70,000 civil service posts and reallocating a further 13,500 posts to "frontline services".

The committee found that, while some of the government's reported savings were working well - such as the £200m saved each year by the Home Office through reducing the cost of asylum accommodation - almost £10bn of reported gains were uncertain.

There was an "inability by departments to demonstrate that efficiency gains are genuine, in that they are sustainable and have not affected service quality".

The MPs added: "There is also uncertainty around reported gains due to inaccurate measurement, such as the reporting of gains without taking account of additional costs."

While government claims to have reduced civil service manpower by some 50,800 posts were "broadly robust", the reported reallocation of 9,700 staff to frontline roles was "less reliable".

For example, HM Revenue and Customs classed managers, administrative support and IT staff as "frontline" workers.

The Department of Health was able to claim it had slimmed its workforce by an additional 450 people, and the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) by 2,060, simply by using a starting date which was before the efficiency drive even began.

There was also "a real possibility" that some of the reported savings did not represent genuine efficiency improvements because they led to a deterioration in services.

The Department of Health claimed more than £1bn in gains from reducing average stays in hospital, without taking into account the fact that the numbers having to be readmitted as emergencies within 28 days of discharge were rising steadily.

Savings at Jobcentre Plus were reported by the DWP at the same time as the average period for processing a Jobseekers' Allowance claim rose from 11 to 16 days, the MPs said.