Are Efficiency Plans Tackling the Real Sources of Government Waste?

Comparing civil servants’ experiences with the departmental efficiency plans shows promising intent yet reveals gaps that could limit progress on reducing waste in government delivery.

Earlier this year, departments submitted efficiency plans to the Treasury outlining their savings commitments. Six months on, Hitachi Solutions’ research with Civil Service World and Public Technology means we can view those plans from a new angle. Having gathered new insight directly from civil servants about what waste looks like in daily work, our report and this article examine the efficiency plans to highlight where efficiency is being sought vs where it’s needed most, the bigger picture that is “waste”, and the risk we run of doing the wrong thing, efficiently.

While the plans point in a positive direction, they often prioritise headline commitments while service redesign, governance reform and workforce readiness appear only briefly. These gaps are not unexpected given the high-level nature of the exercise, but they matter when considering how ambitions translate into real savings. In the following sections, we explore what our research reveals about the pressures behind them.

Service modernisation appears frequently. DHSC focuses on shared patient records. HMRC emphasises digital tax interactions. DWP seeks to streamline claimant journeys. These areas matter because they touch the core services where duplication, slow handoffs and repeated manual work are most likely to occur.

Most plans also lean on estates reduction, shared services and channel shift. Departments such as MoJ and MHCLG plan to consolidate office space. HMRC and DWP aim to move more routine contacts online. Several departments reference legacy IT replacement. They cover what was asked, but the internal drivers of waste are largely unaddressed.

Our research shows why that gap matters. Just 21% of surveyed civil servants think their organisation is equipped to eliminate waste; 71% say they often complete work that adds little value, and 62% highlight duplication as a major issue. These pressures rarely feature in the plans, but they will influence whether ambitions translate into real savings.

Take digital adoption, for example. Almost every plan mentions automation or AI, yet few explain how they will fix workflows and data first. Only 16% of surveyed civil servants believe technology reduces waste, noting that tools are often layered on existing processes, so rework moves rather than disappears. Several plans flag automation, but rarely link it to redesigned, end-to-end journeys.

Governance is another area where gaps appear. 69% of respondents say decisions take so long that waste accumulates while teams wait. While a few plans hint at lighter change control, most do not address governance directly. Without faster decisions, reforms will stall.

Departments often refer to reuse, and MHCLG describes plans to consolidate grants systems, but most stop short of explaining how teams will identify overlapping platforms or decide when to adopt instead of build. Case management, grants, payments and licensing systems all exist in multiple forms across government, and without clearer visibility of what is already in use, repeated effort is hard to avoid.

Viewed through the lens of our research, three conclusions emerge about the plans’ likely effectiveness.

First, most plans emphasise estates, channels and digital access, yet the biggest sources of waste arise inside services through rework, unclear processes and unnecessary handoffs. Departments that track time returned to staff, fewer repeat contacts or improved first time resolution, will be better placed to deliver meaningful efficiencies.

Second, the few plans that describe workforce change, role design or data improvement point to what will be needed more widely. These are the elements that make efficiencies hold once the initial changes are made.

Third, the underlying drivers of waste remain largely unaddressed. Visibility of duplication, clearer ownership and faster decision making are essential if plans are to deliver more than headline improvements.

Overall, the plans point in a broadly positive direction, but the root causes of waste remain only partly tackled. The opportunity now is to link the ambition in the plans with the realities surfaced in the research, so that savings come from removing waste rather than moving it around.