The Government estimates the public sector will need to find £5bn in extra efficiency savings by 2010/11, on top of the £30bn target announced last year.

Chancellor Alistair Darling, facing accusations from the Conservatives that he was spending money that the UK does not have to escape recession, claimed in the pre-Budget report that there would be ‘a relentless focus on value-for-money’.

Darling confirmed that the 2004 efficiency savings target of £21.5bn, to be met by March 2008,had been ‘substantially exceeded, with more than £26.5bn of savings’.

He said that this demonstrated there was scope for greater savings in the current spending review period, up to 2010/11, claiming that ‘frontline public services will not be affected’.

‘Independent reviewers have identified new efficiencies across public sector operations,’ he said.

The reviews had highlighted scope to further reduce price variation in items purchased across government, such as vehicle fleets.

There was also an opportunity to ‘realise value for taxpayers’ from transport and other assets, according to the reviewers.

A review of capacity at the Dartford Crossing would include a consideration of ‘commercialisation’ – seen as involvement of the private sector.

The Local Government Association said it would ‘argue vigorously that councils, as the most efficient part of the public sector, are already contributing more than our fair share to the savings’.

Local government exceeded its £3bn savings target by 2007/08, and is on track to find another £4.9bn of efficiencies – this time cash-releasing – with the largest due to come through changes to procurement.

However, Matthew Lugg, chair of the County Surveyors’ Society engineering committee, agreed with the chancellor that there was ‘a need to up the pace on efficiencies’. ‘There’s much more scope for collaborative procurement in highways,’ he said, citing the joint contracts between three Midlands counties. The Highways Agency could go further, too, he said.