Senior Tory promises cuts will not hit Decc schemes

Baroness Verma, parliamentary undersecretary for energy and climate change, has pledged that proposed cuts in government spending will not affect any current programmes from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc).

The department has agreed with the Treasury a budget cut of between 8 and 10 per cent for 2015. Spending will be reduced by £400 million, and potentially swingeing cuts at Decc could put one in ten jobs in the department at risk.

Verma told Utility Week the cuts will “not have an impact on the delivery of our programmes”.

“We will look to see how we can actually make things more efficient within the programmes rather than actually impact on the programmes,” she said.

Verma added that the reductions would come from backroom savings, such as sharing services and administration costs with other departments, and procuring services more efficiently. She said: “Decc has been one of the departments that has actually been performing rather well in this area.”

Despite Verma’s reassurances, the Public and Commercial Services Union expressed concern that staff cuts would affect Decc’s ability to “fulfil its statutory duties”.

Chancellor George Osborne wants to cut spending by £11.5 billion as part of the 2015/16 spending review. The Treasury has agreed more than £3.6 billion of savings with 14 departments, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government.