Francis Maude: Efficient and effective government

It was an opportunity to reflect both on what we have achieved and on what remains to be done. Because the key task facing this Government and the Government after next May is to tackle the budget deficit. We forget now that in 2010 it was the biggest in the developed world. And we needed to cut our costs, like any business that finds itself under pressure.

Far too often government was paying different prices for the same product. For example we found parts of the government were paying seven and a half times more for standard printer cartridges than others. Just a waste of money.

Immediately we started renegotiating contracts with our biggest suppliers – dealing with them as a single customer as the government should always have done.

We slashed spending on consultancy – it’s down by more than half, and made massive savings from advertising and marketing.