Brown outlines savings plan
The Prime Minister has outlined a number of plans that he says will help save around £12 billion over the next four years - £3 billion more than was originally pledged as part of efficiency savings in the April Budget. In the speech, Gordon Brown said the pay bill of the senior service would be cut by up to 20% over three years, releasing savings of £100 million a year. He also pledged to halve Whitehall spending on consultancy and reduce the amount of money spent on marketing by a quarter, equalling a combined saving of £650 million a year. Also announced were plans to merge or abolish 123 Government arms length bodies, with the remained subjected to greater oversight, with a view to clawing back some £500 million per annum, while more staff are to be relocated outside London and the South East. "By identifying new ways of working - and being prepared to make the tough choices - we can deliver in excess of another £12 billion in efficiency savings over the next four years. This includes £3 billion of new efficiency savings identified since the Budget - of which over 1.3 billion will come from streamlining central government," said the Prime Minister. The speech comes just days before Alistair Darling delvers his Pre-Budget Report, in which he will outline some cuts but is not to announce a full spending review.