The political dogs let loose

It’s all politicking in the run up to Wednesday’s PBR but the PM used his speech to the Royal Society Monday and to clarify how ‘Smarter Government' will enable Labour to make massive public sector savings.

According to Chancellor Darling at the weekend, “the NHS has a quite expensive IT system that, frankly, isn't essential to the frontline. It's something I think we don't need to go ahead with just now."

How the £12bn-£30bn NpfIT (depending on who’s talking about it) will be scrapped without incurring the litigious wrath of key providers and outsourcers like BT and CSC, with longterm lucrative outsourcing contracts in place, remains to be seen.

For his part, Brown said the government’s overall programme would bring about additional savings of over £3bn and promised to clamp down on the culture of public sector excess.

Tories and Liberals are talking about £12bn and £2bn savings respectively and all three have pledged to regulate and cutback public sector salaries and bonuses. All that plus the banks?

Oh, and the great majority of government services will be online-only within five years while £30m will get 1m ctizens online by 2012.It’s cheaper than post and call centrwes and notwithstanding the need for functioning broadband, he expects online VAT returns and employer tax returns by 2011.

Laudable but since the government has been unable to provide a working spine and electronic records system for the NHS, sceptics query its ability, “to shift the great majority of our large transactional services to become online only”.

Brown said that has the potential to save £400m as an initial first step but,” as transaction after transaction goes online, billions more."