The Department for Work and Pensions will improve use of office space as one of several ways to deliver efficiency savings of more than £500m at the department by 2012-13.
Yvette Cooper, work and pensions secretary and Alistair Darling, chancellor, will start the process today to commit the department to deliver the savings. Full details of which government department will be forced to bear the initial burden of cutting borrowings will be announced in Wednesday’s Budget.
An analysis in the Financial Times says Darling will sprinkle the Budget with ‘future-orientated’ spending, such as support for infrastructure projects. It says capital spending is projected to be £15bn lower in 2013-14 than the Treasury was planning two years ago, but the government has not said which schools, roads, prisons or hospitals will not now be built.
22/03/10 Financial Times 1, 9
