efficiency savings

Morning Star Editorial: Public services can’t wear further cuts – Reeves must be stopped

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-public-services-cant-wear-further-cuts-reeves-must-be-stopped

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves arrives to meet students on the carpentry course during a visit to Bury College in Greater Manchester, March 20, 2025

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Fourteen years of Tory rule have cut services to the bone. The notion that “efficiency savings” can slice off further billions without worsening already degraded services is absurd.

Ironically, the cuts are intended to fund increased military spending — though if there is a department renowned for waste it is the Ministry of Defence. The MoD is repeatedly excoriated by the public accounts committee for the huge sums squandered on projects that end up delayed by years or not delivered at all.

Current Defence Secretary John Healey, when in the shadow cabinet, published a report identifying billions it had overspent on projects and billions more paid for cancelled contracts with its often extortionate suppliers. The report noted that the MoD had even been fined £32.6 million by the Treasury for its “poor accounting practices.” Yet it is this department which is having more billions thrown its way.

As for extortionate suppliers, the evidence is plain that besides tying institutions from hospitals to schools into contracts forcing them to repay PFI debts worth multiples of the original loans, many such agreements also tie them into inflexible and costly servicing contracts.

Outsourcing services is massively inefficient, yet remains the norm, despite Reeves’s one-time promise to deliver “the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation.”

As the Prison Officers Association (POA) points out of outsourced prison maintenance, we end up paying through the nose for “crumbling cells, compromised safety and rodent-infested jails.”

“We do not for one minute accept that the privatised model of prison maintenance is more cost effective than insourcing … it is completely delusional to claim it provides best value for the taxpayer,” POA general secretary Steve Gillan observes.

Clearly value for money is not Reeves’s priority — corporate profits are, including at the Treasury’s expense.

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Read the original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-public-services-cant-wear-further-cuts-reeves-must-be-stopped

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Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Public services can’t wear further cuts – Reeves must be stopped

Reeves orders 5% cuts across all government departments in ‘efficiency drive’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/reeves-orders-5-cuts-across-all-government-departments-in-efficiency-drive

CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves has ordered 5 per cent cuts across government departments in an “efficiency drive” that resembles austerity.

Announcing the spending review, Ms Reeves said: “I have no doubt that we can find efficiency savings within government spending of 5 per cent and I’m determined to do so.”

She said the cuts would be secured by cracking down on waste and focusing on the five “milestone” policies Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer outlined in his government relaunch last week.

Those were boosting living standards, building more homes, cutting NHS waiting lists, ensuring children are ready for school and raising military spending to 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product.

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The 5 per cent reductions are to be achieved over three years, the Treasury said, adding that the Chancellor will “work with departments to prioritise spending that supports the milestones to deliver the plan,” indicating that areas not a “milestone,” such as welfare, will be squeezed.

Ms Reeves denied that her move replicated a similar announcement by her predecessor George Osborne at the height of Tory austerity.

Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said: “Labour call their 5 per cent cuts across government departments ‘efficiency savings.’ We call it what it is: cuts to services.

“This amounts to the continuation of the same damaging, unpopular and unnecessary policy that has so devastated our country over many years.”

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Read the complete, original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/reeves-orders-5-cuts-across-all-government-departments-in-efficiency-drive

Continue ReadingReeves orders 5% cuts across all government departments in ‘efficiency drive’