For decades, there was a long standing suspicion that government departments waste huge amounts of taxpayers money. However, the data was never there to confirm this view. That has now changed. The coalition has forced government departments to publish their expenditures over £500. Everything is online now.
Today, I downloaded the December expenditure for the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. Then I set myself the task of cutting at least 7 percent of their expenditures without reducing staffing costs.
In December, the Commission spent £1.7 million. Around 30 percent went on salaries, 25 percent on grants and a staggering 17 percent on rent (lets hope that latter amount was a quarterly not monthly bill).
The seven percent target could have been achieved if the Commission had introduced: a) a staff travel ban; b) stopped "monitoring" the media and Parliament, c) cancelled a conference, d) cancelled some electronic subscriptions, e) stopped translating their documents, and e) fired an overpaid Barrister. The details are presented in the table above.
One job lost for a 7 percent reduction in expenditures, I am sure it is possible.
One last question, do you think the Commission's "media" monitoring also picks up this blog?
4 comments:
Alice,
Sometimes you are just too much. When did you get it into your head that you could offer budget advice to a government department.
I love it. Do it again. But pick on a bigger department.
Staff do have to travel, but in London tubes are quicker and cheaper than taxis, the media monitoring is a clippings service - the staff can read the papers themselves, and the barristers' fees are for acting as the enforcement arm of Stonewall. So save the whole of the barristers' fees.
That's just a warm up. If this was a business doing cuts there would be bound to be other savings that are easy. For example, energy consultants regularly slice big percentages off energy bills, and I'd be stunned if there weren't more professional subs that couldn't be cancelled.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jun/10/ehrc-budget-cut-whitehall-spending
I suggest you look at the Min of Defense and their wonderful procurement history. Billions gifted to arms companies for little in return.... unless you get a job with said companies after retirement..
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