Get Widget
A groundbreaking new report jointly produced by the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) and the Institute of Directors (IoD) lays out detailed proposals to save £50 billion of annual public expenditure. Inspired by the dire state of the public finances, which both David Cameron and Chancellor Alistair Darling this week said requires action, the two organisations - the leading bodies representing taxpayers and company directors, respectively - have joined forces to produce a series of 32 practical steps which have the potential to save £42.5 billion a year from 2010-11 and a further 2 steps saving £7.5 billion that could be introduced from 2011-12.
Key Findings
The full programme of 34 proposed savings consists of:
Item | Item description | Annual saving, £m | |
| | | |
| Tackling areas of spending that are not performing Reducing items of spending that don’t work | | £5,477 |
1 | Abolish the Bus Service Operators’ Grant | £451 | |
2 | Abolish Sure Start | £1,456 | |
3 | Abolish Building Schools for the Future | £2,300 | |
4 | Abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance | £530 | |
5 | Halt further orders and upgrades for the Eurofighter | £740 | |
| | | |
| Curbing over-extended government Stopping government doing things it shouldn’t be doing | | £1,595 |
6 | Halve the government advertising and publicity budget | £270 | |
7 | Abolish Contact Point, the children’s database | £44 | |
8 | Abolish the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) | £1,181 | |
9 | Abolish identity cards | £55 | |
10 | Abandon plans to extend the compulsory school leaving age to 18 | £45 | |
| | | |
| Cutting out the middle-man Reducing agencies and people that get in the way of the frontline | | £6,928 |
11 | Halve public sector spending on consultants | £1,100 | |
12 | Reduce non-frontline staff in health and schools by 10 per cent | £921 | |
13 | Reduce the size of the civil service by 10 per cent | £1,233 | |
14 | Scale down ‘Local Education Authorities’ (LEAs) in England | £599 | |
15 | Slim down the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) | £1,317 | |
16 | Rationalise the framework of regional government and business support | £940 | |
17 | Begin a thorough rationalisation of taxpayer funded quangos and public bodies, including total abolitions, funding reallocations and budget cuts | £818 | |
| | | |
| Tackling specific budgets Taking a more blanket approach on specific budgets | | £6,491 |
18 | Cut 25 per cent from the budget of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) | £725 | |
19 | One year freeze of the resource and capital budgets of the Department for International Development | £862 | |
20 | One year freeze of the Home Office resource and capital budgets | £360 | |
21 | One year freeze of the grants from the Department for Communities and Local Government to local and regional governments | £687 | |
22 | Cut 10 per cent from the budgets of non-ministerial departments, except for UK Trade and Investment and the UK Statistics Authority | £1,700 | |
23 | One year freeze of the grants given to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales (current spending only) | £1,400 | |
24 | Simplify and rationalise the skills system and the plethora of skills programmes | £757 | |
| | | |
| Tackling above-inflation indexing Increasing payments in line with inflation, but no more | | £1,441 |
25 | One year freeze of the Basic State Pension and the Minimum Income Guarantee | £1,441 | |
| | | |
| Restraining public sector pay and perks Recognising that the public sector has had a good deal recently | | £8,711 |
26 | One year pay freeze across the public sector, excluding members of the armed forces serving in conflict zones | £6,203 | |
27 | Increase employee contributions to all unfunded public sector pension schemes by a third | £2,508 | |
| | | |
| Cutting middle-class welfare Stopping paying benefits to people who don’t need them | | £11,999 |
28 | Abolish Child Benefit and the Child Trust Fund, and increase the Child Element of the Child Tax Credit to address child poverty concerns | £8,447 | |
29 | Taper away the Family Element of the Child Tax Credit at 39 per cent immediately upon exhaustion of the Child Element of the Child Tax Credit | £1,350 | |
30 | Target spending on free bus passes for the elderly and disabled on those who genuinely need it | £438 | |
31 | Abolish free TV licences | £564 | |
32 | Abolish interest subsidy to student loans | £1,200 | |
| | | |
| Total annual saving from 2010-11 onwards | | £42,642 |
| | | |
| Further emergency possibilities after 2010 If fiscal conditions were so bad as to require emergency savings | | £7,421 |
33 | A further one year pay freeze across the public sector, excluding members of the armed forces serving in conflict zones | £6,203 | |
34 | Reduce gross annual pay by 5 per cent for the richest 10 per cent in the public sector | £1,218 | |
| | | |
| Total potential annual saving from 2011-12 onwards | | £50,063 |
For full details of each proposal, please see the relevant section of the full report, which is available online here.
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