2007 Comprehensive Spending Review.

As part of its preparations for the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR07), the Government is taking forward a fundamental assessment of its expenditure, with the aim of maximising value for money across all public spending. By building on the progress of the 2004 Spending Review efficiency programme and pursuing even more ambitious reforms over the CSR07 period, this programme will enable the Government to sustain the momentum of public service improvement and release the resources needed to meet new priorities and challenges in the decade ahead. In the run-up to CSR07 the Government is:

  • deepening the government-wide efficiency programme in the operational areas established by the Gershon Review, harnessing the benefits of greater collaboration across organisations and engaging with frontline professionals to identify opportunities for service improvements;
  • conducting a series of zero-based reviews of departments’ baseline expenditure, which will take a radical look at the way that government spends money on policies and programmes a decade on from the first CSR;
  • reviewing the opportunities for transforming service delivery across government, looking at how the channels through which services are delivered can be made more efficient and responsive to the needs of users;
  • requiring all departments to prepare pay and workforce plans, to maintain the pace of workforce modernisation across the public sector and ensure pay growth is put on a sustainable footing over the CSR period; and
  • delivering a step-change improvement in the management of the public sector asset base , taking forward the recommendations of the Lyons Review of Asset Management.

An interim report ‘Releasing the resources to meet the challenges ahead: value for money in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review’ was published on 13 July 2006, setting out progress on both the implementation of the current efficiency programme and the Government’s strategy for driving further value for money improvements over the CSR07 period.