While the core Cabinet Office budget will be reduced by £55m by 2014-15, its resource budget will increase by 28 per cent, with a £470m increase for funding to the voluntary sector, £95m for a referendum on the voting system, £120m for EU Parliament elections, £85m to reform the electoral register, and £10m to review electoral boundaries. Meanwhile, part of the Cabinet Office will move into the Treasury’s building.

More services are to be provided primarily online or through digital telephony. As a first step, this is to apply to Jobseeker’s Allowance, new business tax registration with HMRC, and driver’s licences. The government will also use post offices for more service provision.

DWP is expected to save 27 percent of its resources budget in real terms, thanks to greater digital processing of benefits plus the tightening of spending on employment programmes, the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, and the Health and Safety Executive.

The government is looking for further asset sales, including those of property holdings “which could operate more sensibly and efficiently within the private sector”. The Ministry of Justice is reducing its central London estate from 18 properties to four, saving £40m.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change is to receive £1bn for the funding of a Green Investment Bank. More funds are expected to be raised from the private sector and the proceeds of future government asset sales. However, there was no mention of whether the bank will gain powers to raise its own revenue by selling bonds – something that has been suggested.

£900m will be spent at HMRC to target tax evasion and fraud, in pursuit of a missing £7bn in tax revenues. This money is to come from savings of 15 per cent through the better use of new technology, greater efficiency, better IT contracts, and a reduction of 44 per cent in capital spending.

Savings of 24 per cent in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) budget will be achieved over the review period by a sharp reduction in the number of Whitehall-based diplomats and back office functions.

The FCO is looking to reduce the size of its estate in London and overseas by co-locating in single premises in countries where the FCO, the Department for International Development and other government bodies are currently in separate buildings.

A new settlement has been reached for the FCO’s foreign currency spending. The department will be compensated for falls in the pound’s value, but it will have to return money to the Treasury when sterling rises.

There is to be an investment in adult apprenticeships, with a 50 per cent funding increase leading to 75,000 new apprenticeships a year by 2014-15.

The largest percentage reduction in administration is to be at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has to reduce its spending by 41 per cent.

The Department for International Development (DFiD) is setting up a new Independent Commission for Aid Impact which will assess all aid spending to ensure value for money. DfID is aiming to increase resource spending by 35 per cent in real terms and capital spending by 20 per cent, while reducing the administration budget by 33 per cent.

Each department will publish a business plan in November, setting out its priorities for 2014-15, a structural reform plan with deadlines for implementing reforms, and key indicators against which it will publish data on the cost and impact of departmental activities.