Senior civil servants will have to show more leadership on back office and IT efficiency if the government is to realise planned big savings, the Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP) theme adviser has said.

Speaking at the More for Less conference, which was organised by CSW publisher Dods in association with Steria, Martin Read – who advised Lord Carter of Coles on the back office and IT strand of the OEP – said: “Things will only change if operational efficiency is taken much more seriously at the top, and that’s only going to come if people are rewarded for efficiency.

“One of the reasons why there hasn’t been further progress on shared services is that people are not rewarded for trying to work across operational boundaries, but they certainly get blamed when things go wrong,” Read said. Top officials prioritise other disciplines, he added: “The policy people are prized more than those working on operational efficiency. None of these [savings] are going to happen unless the people at the top really want it to happen.”

However, Read said he anticipated faster progress after the election. “It’s very difficult in the last days of a government. We’ve got inertia at the moment,” he said. “This is going to be a really big issue for the next administration. And we have no real alternative: I won’t say that the government is nearly bust, but there are certainly major financial issues.”