Effectiveness not efficiency matters

Pre-budget gloom and doom abounds, with the Western Mail forecasting £1bn cut from the Assembly's budget, to be achieved by easily said, harder to achieve, 'efficiency savings'.  There is no doubt there are savings to be had. In many years of public service I have been astonished at what savings can be made - and improvements to service made at the same time - when backs are against the wall.  But trimming here and snipping there are ultimately doomed to fail, because they don't challenge basic thinking about services and their delivery.  There does indeed come a point when there is no fat left to cut.

Much better would be 'effectiveness savings', where anything that didn't make a big difference to the Government's objectives got the chop. This is just one simple example, but there are lots more.  The Welsh Assembly Government currently provides money to local authorities to pay a school uniform grant when children from low income families start secondary school. It is only £100 or so, which all are agreed is inadequate in lots of ways, and it only goes to prop up a rip-off school uniform industry. So, why not do something more radical, like getting rid of uniforms altogether, or else having a standard low cost uniform on which you can sew your school's badge.  The money saved could be spent on something more useful, like more teachers.