Again this year, the United States is first in the rankings of the 2008 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, a pioneer in ranking and analyzing how nations compete and manage their path to prosperity,

But will the United States’ run continue? In 1989, Japan seemed firmly in the number one position with the US in third. By 1994, however, the US took over leadership, a position it has held ever since. The downfall of Japan in competitiveness bears some similarities with the present situation. Will the US follow the same path?

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An efficiency drive designed to save 57million is now likely to cost the Departmrnt for Transport [DIT} £81 million, a Government watchdog has found,

There was insufficient time to test a new IT system which has proved “unstable” whhen it went live,the report by the National Audit Office said.

Transport department staff told the audit office that people were being recorded as sick when they were not and the information being recorded was “garbage”

THe head of the audit office, Tim Burr said “it is disappointing to see a programme which aimed to improve efficiency and effectiveness leaving it - on current projections- some £80million worse off”.

The DIT had said that the programme would cost £55million and achieve gross savings of £112million.

However the audit office said the programme is forcast to cost £120million against the gross savings identified of “40million over its lifetime to March 2015.

Ministers are hoping to cut more than £7 billion from the cost of running the Government with a major review of wasteful public spending.

A 12 month efficiency  drive with reviews into different areas of Government spending headed by senior private sector figures has been outlined by. Yvette Cooper, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury  who said.  “We need continual improvements to make sure the taxpayer is getting the best possible value for money. Public Sector efficiency has improved significantly in recent years, but we need to keep doing more”

The four areas identified for cost-cutting are:-

• Buying in bulk by government departments.
• Using government property more efficiently.
• Changing the management of government asserts, possibly through greater private sector involvement.
• Merging back office and IT functions