Making Whitehall More Efficient

It has been announced ahead of Wednesday’s fudge it budget that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling will be making a saving of £15,000,000,000 over the next couple of years, by making Whitehall more efficient.

Presumably, this means cutting back on the number of civil servants presently “employed” by the various Government departments, something that the general public has been calling for for years.

But, if the civil service is trimmed, this would presumably mean sacking a lot of workers, rather than just shunting them around from one department to another, as has been done in the past.

So, these workers will expect redundancy pay. And they will expect unemployment benefit.

Lord Digby Jones said of the Civil Service, ”Frankly the job could be done with half as many, it could be more productive, more efficient, it could deliver a lot more value for money for the taxpayer. I was amazed, quite frankly, at how many people deserved the sack and yet that was the one threat that they never ever worked under, because it doesn’t exist.”

This week’s budget is going to have to be a corker. It has to take the pressure off the Prime Minister, after weeks of criticism from many quarters regarding sleaze, corruption, police brutality, MPs’ expenses, opinion poll ratings, etc.

Uncle Bob Mugabe must be looking over his shoulder, wondering who that is just behind him in the race for sleaze-ball of the century!

But then, does it really matter what Darling says? After June 2010, there will probably be a new government in power, who, with a bit of luck, may have some ideas about how to run this country.

And pigs might fly.