The Minister for Cabinet Office has said government has a duty to ensure that taxpayers money is spent wisely.
Government has began a long-term efficiency program aiming to save £50 million over five years, beginning with identifying £10 million in recurring annual savings
Cabinet Office Minister David Ashford explained that efficiency isn’t about cutting services but improving delivery, possibly through new methods and reviewing regulation effectiveness.
Spend it Wisely
Speaking to Manx.News, Mr Ashford said: “We believe we can very quickly identify £10million a year of recurring savings, which will be the £50million over five years after that, we then need to will go deeper and we will take a look.
“Government has a duty to ensure that taxpayers money is actually spent wisely. You know fully well, from my time in Tynwald, I have banged on many times about the cost of government and ensuring that we’re doing things efficiently.
“So this is a start. It’s certainly not the be all and end all. We’re not going to get to that £50 million over five years and then say that’s it, job done.”
Are we Doing it Right?
Mr Ashford said there are three key components to the efficiency, he said: “The problem with any government is that you can end up doing things because you’ve done it for 20 years, 30 years, the first question for me is we should be asking, of all our services, is, what are we providing, and is it the right thing to provide?
“The second question is, are we providing it in the right way? And the third question, the most critical one, is, why are we providing it? Is it something that we actually can should be doing, or is there a better way of doing it?
“So efficiency doesn’t necessarily mean stopping services. It can actually mean doing things and delivering it in a different way and actually providing, in some cases, an enhanced service compared to what’s there.
“So from my point of view, we do need to look at regulation as well. Government should be constantly looking across the piece of what regulation is in place. Is that regulation working? Is it over, you know, is it doing too much? And in a few cases, is it doing too little? Is it not actually providing the protections that we should be doing?”
Merging Jobs
Mr Ashford added: “One of the things that’s being looked at as part of the efficiencies program is basically the overarching setup of government, which includes how we are structured.
“Are there, for instance, things that have been done for years in the same way that actually could be merged together? Or is there, you know, new roles as AI comes on, which we’ve just had a huge panel debate about, there are efficiencies to be gained there as well.
“We need to be asking across all our services. And we are asking those three questions about, what is the service? What is the service delivering? And why are we delivering it?”
The Minister for Cabinet Office delivered the efficiencies programme at the Conference in the place of former Minister without Portfolio, Tim Crookall.
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