Chancellor George Osborne and chief secretary to the Treasury David Laws have implemented a £30 million cut to the NPIA as part of their urgent savings to help tackle the £156 billion deficit.
NPIA chief people officer Angela O’Connor said the savings would be made on top of the £57 million of savings from 2009/11, of which £32.5 million were delivered in 2009-10 and a further £24.5 million are earmarked for 2010-11. However, she stressed that the agency exists to deliver greater efficiency for the police.
We have committed to delivering more than £1 billion of savings for the police service, she said. So for every £1 spent on the agency we will help the service to deliver more than £2 savings. That’s a very good return on any investment.
Savings will come from a freeze on recruitment, except in the most critical areas of policing support; by continuing the NPIA's policy of reducing consultancy spend (down from the £71 million it inherited to less than £10 million in 2010/11) and from reducing expenditure on marketing, other information activities and support service functions.
We are also looking in detail at how to drive forward further efficiency gains within the agency, O’Connor added.
The NPIA was one of the areas targeted in a £367 million cut to the Home Office. Other cuts included £135 million to police funding for administration, procurement and IT and £133 million in miscellaneous, including recruitment savings.
Elsewhere, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, rumoured to be under threat, has survived with £8 million of cuts while Becta, the schools technology quango, has been axed.
