Ann Beasley, finance director, Ministry of Justice

What were your department’s resource and capital budgets in 2009-10, and what will they be in 2011-12 and 2013-14?

Resource DEL (Departmental Expenditure Limit) is set to fall from £8.3bn in 2010-11 to £7.0bn in 2014-15, while capital DEL will fall from £0.6bn to £0.3bn.

What are the first steps that your department will be taking as it moves to cut costs?

We want to protect essential services at the frontline wherever possible, so the majority of our savings – more than £1bn – will come from improving efficiency and administration at every level in the organisation. We are shrinking HQ and our arm’s-length bodies, focusing a much-reduced resource on essential support to the operational services. 

More broadly, which reforms of the civil service and of government organisations will be most important in enabling civil servants to improve the efficiency of their organisations?

We were already one of the leading government departments for shared services but we will be building on this further, sharing services across the whole of Ministry of Justice and our arm’s-length bodies. We’ll be rolling out the successful, and much slimmer, centralised model that we’ve already implemented in procurement and ICT, and extending our shared service to operational support and administration. We’ll be using ‘Lean’ and other process-improvement techniques to further improve efficiency in courts, prisons and probation, and we’ll be making sure we’re making the best possible use of our physical assets: estates, IT etc. We’re consulting over plans to close under-used court buildings, and are on track to reduce our London estate from 18 buildings to just four.

But to make sustainable savings on this scale, we must address the factors that affect demand for services. So we will be consulting on major reforms of legal aid and sentencing policy, to make sure we punish and rehabilitate offenders more effectively, and so that we can target help at those who need it most to gain access to justice while cutting the costs of the justice system. The change is formidable and will affect almost every aspect of what we do and how we do it – and we will also have to deliver with significantly fewer people. We’ve begun to develop new, streamlined structures and to plan the complex programme of legislation we need to underpin the policy reforms. 

What opportunities does the localism agenda provide for central departments to save money?

On localism, the Ministry of Justice cannot reduce re-offending on its own; we rely on contributions from a host of other departments and local agencies providing key services such as housing, social services, education and support for children in need.

The majority of offenders will rejoin their communities at the end of their sentence, and we want to encourage more local people to get involved in voluntary work. There are approximately 10,000 volunteers already working within the youth justice system, many as local Youth Offender Panel members (for the Referral Order); others act as mentors, appropriate adults and literacy coaches, or provide positive activities. Local organisations are often best placed to really understand local needs, and can have a part to play in investing in activities that can help reduce offending and re-offending. There will be opportunities for greater innovation as we bring forward plans to pay by results so that we reward those services that deliver the best outcomes. The upshot of this for the taxpaying public will be reductions in offending and re-offending and better value from offender-management services.

Liz Ditchburn, director, Finance and Corporate Performance Division, Department for International Development

What were your department’s resource and capital budgets in 2009-10, and what will they be in 2011-12 and 2013-14?

In 2009-10 DfID was responsible for £6.7bn of public expenditure. In 2011-12 DfID’s budget will grow to £7.8bn and then rise to £11.0bn in 2013-14, to meet the government’s commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income on international development. DfID will also work with the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence to manage the resources in the conflict pool, which will reach £290m in 2013-14.
 
What are the first steps that your department will be taking as it moves to cut costs?

Like all government departments, DfID will cut administration costs by 33 per cent. We will make savings to the costs of our corporate ‘back office’ saving £8m per year, and reduce the number of senior civil servants across the organisation, saving £2m per year. We will be leasing out three floors in our London HQ, saving us around £3m per year. We will also continue to make savings in other areas; for example, we have already changed our travel policy to make economy-class travel the standard wherever staff travel in the world, saving around £3m per year. 
 
Which reforms will be most important in enabling civil servants to improve the efficiency of their organisations?

DfID’s greatest challenge is to ensure we achieve maximum impact with the growing aid budget. The department has initiated three thorough reviews of its bilateral, multilateral and emergency response programmes, which will eliminate lower-priority spending and waste and redirect savings to priority countries and programmes where the impact will be greater. Aid to China and Russia will cease from next year; the full results of the reviews will be announced in spring 2011.

We are also introducing tougher scrutiny: the new Independent Commission on Aid Impact will ensure we give the British public independently-verified evidence that the aid budget is being well spent, and the new UK Aid Transparency Guarantee will ensure that citizens of both the UK and developing countries have full information on British aid spent by DfID and by other departments.
 
What opportunities does the localism agenda provide for your department to save money?

We have a headquarters in East Kilbride, dealing with many of our vital finance and HR functions, as well as research, civil society and policy functions. Additional posts are currently being relocated to East Kilbride, strengthening the office’s role in DfID’s policy work.

Hunada Nouss, finance director, Department for Work and Pensions

What were your department’s resource and capital budgets in 2009-10, and what will they be in 2011-12 and 2013-14?

In 2009-10, resource DEL was £8.8bn and capital DEL was £0.3bn (total expenditure, including recession funding).  By 2014-15, those figures will stand at £7.6bn and £0.2bn respectively.

What are the first steps that your department will be taking as it moves to cut costs?
The department is currently working hard to deliver its contribution (£535m) to the £6,243m of in-year savings announced at the emergency Budget. As part of this work, the department is reducing its discretionary spending – this includes expenditure on consultancy, research, communications and travel – and encouraging staff to become more cost-conscious and consume only what they need.

The finance department’s ‘Spending Wisely’ campaign is a good example of encouraging staff to reduce costs where possible. We have also been working hard on the Organisational Design Review to streamline functions such as policy, finance and human resources; plans will begin to be implemented in the coming months.

More broadly, which reforms of the civil service and of government organisations will be most important in enabling civil servants to improve the efficiency of their organisations?

Digitalisation is an exciting agenda which will bring efficiency savings for government and convenience for customers. Another big opportunity is the ‘Next Generation HR’ project, which will create further shared services across government, a strategic centre for HR led by the Cabinet Office and Civil Service Learning, which will provide training across government for civil servants.

What opportunities does the localism agenda provide for central departments to save money?

Work and Pensions has a large delivery network through Jobcentre Plus and is currently exploring strategies on co-locating with local partners such as councils to make savings on our buildings. The department already provides services in around 1,500 partner locations and is piloting giving flexibility to local managers in four districts.

As part of the Work Programme, local partners will have extensive opportunities to influence the support that is put in place, and providers will be free to pool their resources at local level if they wish.