‘We must root out waste’

Government spends stand at over £1 trillion per year (Image: Getty)The amount the government spends has ballooned over the last decade and now stands at over £1 trillion per year. Nearly a third of that has been added in the last decade alone – driven by the big challenges this country has faced, such as the pandemic. To put that in context, over that period government spending has increased by roughly the size of today’s health, education, defence and justice budgets combined. That’s an enormous amount, which has contributed to the UK’s national debt reaching a level not seen since the 1960s – threatening our economic stability by making us vulnerable to global events and changes in interest rates. Of course, no one is saying it wasn’t right to protect the UK economy against completely unpredictable external shocks.Support schemes saved millions of jobs during the pandemic and prevented long-term economic scarring, while the decisive action we’ve taken to hold down energy bills this winter and additional the £1,200 cost of living support for the most vulnerable households couldn’t be more vital as the ripples of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine are felt. But we need to be careful not to leave the next generation with an unmanageable burden. As the Prime Minister said on his first day in Downing Street, to leave our children with unpaid debts would be weak.So as the Chancellor laid out yesterday, the most important thing the British government’s responsibility now is to restore stability, sort out our public finances, and get debt falling so that interest rate rises are kept as low as possible.Sound money and a stable economy is the best way to deliver lower mortgage rates, more jobs and long-term growth, but we will need to take difficult decisions on tax and spend to get there. This government has already shown it will not shy away from taking tough but necessary decisions. A full plan to get debt falling as a share of the economy will be set out in the Autumn Statement in a couple of weeks, alongside a full OBR forecast.But as well as keeping control of the amount we spend, we also need to focus on what we spend that money on. That’s why the Chancellor has made it one of his top priorities to make sure every department is working as efficiently and effectively as possible. The British taxpayer expects nothing less.There’s a huge amount of waste in the system and we will root it out. And as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, it’s my job to weigh every penny before it’s spent. The Chancellor and I have begun holding regular meetings with ministers to examine what money is being spent and why, and we will work closely with Departments to cut through any unnecessary bureaucracy that gets in the way. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is going to prioritise controlling spending (Image: Getty)The savings we find will be reinvested into this government’s priorities like tackling the NHS’s covid elective backlog, which has left millions of people waiting for vital treatment. There are plenty of ways to save. New procurement rules will help departments buy the goods and services they need at a cheaper price, maximising their purchasing power as larger businesses do.Work to digitise our public services will also be turbocharged, slashing administrative spending and saving the public purse around £1 billion a year by 2025, while speeding up and improving the operation of government.And new innovations, like the virtual wards which were trialled during the pandemic to monitor patients remotely, will allow us to deliver better services for less.The sale of under-used government buildings, particularly expensive central London properties, must also be accelerated.Selling these empty buildings could save around £500 million a year, before taking account of the cost of heating and running them, and ultimately help build a Civil Service that truly reflects the communities it represents by moving 22,000 roles into other areas of the country by 2030.Finally, we need to ensure that public money is protected from those who seek to abuse the system.The new Public Sector Fraud Authority will harness the combined intellectual might of data experts and counter-fraud professionals to warn departments about the threats they face and design robust defences against them, saving up to £180 million this year alone.None of this will be easy, but there is a wealth of expertise out there that can help.Lord Maude was able to eliminate over £20 billion in waste by the end of the Cameron government and the Chancellor and I will use his and others’ experiences to target our efforts.Achieving something similar won’t completely protect departments from the difficult decisions we need to take, but cutting out waste can certainly reduce the depth of change required. That is the responsible course of action.Comment by John Glen, Chief Secretary to the Treasury