Almost half of council have bought into the Treasury’s Operational Efficiency Programme and are planning to cut costs with better use of technology according to a survey by ntl:Telewest Business. Across the UK public sector £16 billion a year is spent on IT, with local government the biggest spender. The target for the sector is to make savings of around £3.2 billion annually.

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Teachers think school trips are valuable, but less than half of youngsters went on a trip last year. A survey commissioned by the Countryside Alliance Foundation found that the reasons for so few trips were concern about health and safety and fear of litigation.

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By Jeff Thomas

Healthcare technology is likely to be an area of cost cutting even though frontline services will be spared the axe as Ministers seek to reduce budgets. Doing things differently is a key approach being used across the public sector to find efficiencies and healthcare technology is no exception. The author describes how data centre outsourcing can not only reduce costs, but also bring a range of other benefits.

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