Efficiency delivery examples

The Efficiency Programme is divided into more than 300 initiatives, varying in size from £1.2 billion to £100,000.

Efficiency gains by departments

The efficiency gains of more than £15 billion include the following examples:

the Department for Education and Skills has identified gains of around £ 320m that have been realised through schools using their resources more effectively, for example through making efficiency comparisons using groups of schools, improving the usage of existing benchmarking tools, and improving the abilities of schools and local authorities to manage their finances through more and better training, and application of new financial management standards.
increasing the proportion of successful projects - DfID have achieved a significant increase in the proportion of international development projects and programmes that are evaluated as 'successful'. An average of 74 per cent of projects are currently meeting this standard, ahead of the original target of 68 per cent by March 2008; and
local authority housing renewal and maintenance - local authorities have reported over £130 million efficiency gains in the management and maintenance of social housing. This has been delivered through better procurement and partnering arrangements, which have resulted in better quality homes for residents, and properties being left unoccupied for shorter periods of time.

Procurement - getting better value from goods and services bought by government.

a £40 million saving from better accommodation contracts has contributed to a £250 million reduction in the cost of support for asylum seekers.
the introduction of 'Pulse Line' technique has enabled quicker turn-around and greater availability of defence equipment such as the Harrier, Tornado, Puma helicopter and the Warrior fighting vehicle. For the Tornado alone, this will deliver average annual savings of £22 million and reduce headcount requirements by 150 posts.
the Department of Work and Pension's renegotiated IT contract will deliver average annual savings worth £180 million.

Productive time - freeing up time for front-line service delivery

better management of patient admissions has reduced the average hospital length of stay, cutting treatments costs by over £300 million so far and freeing-up over 1 million bed days to treat more patients, more quickly.
the Metropolitan Police Service has achieved efficiency gains in officer time equivalent to £16.7 million from targeted action to reduce sickness levels.
a new Probation Service computer system will automate the preparation of reports for court, saving 110,000 hours of probation officer time each year.

Shared services - reducing running costs in HR, IT support and finance

the Department of Health has set up a shared services joint venture company to manage NHS non-customer facing processes, delivering significant operational and efficiency benefits.

Transactional services - streamlining interactions with customers

the Department for Transport is making annual efficiency gains of over £350,000 through online booking of driving tests, with the convenience of being available 24 hours a day. Online bookings are now being made for half of all theory tests and one third of all practical driving tests.

Policy, funding and regulation - streamlining government machinery

the Department for International Development has improved the efficiency and effectiveness of its aid programme for Ugandan health services by integrating its funding streams with those of the national government rather than funding specific projects. This has led to higher immunisation rates amongst children and increases in trained health workers - a doubling of health sector outcomes achieved with only a modest increase in resources.