Office furniture cuts
Here is a quote from FT.com
Members of the new government have highlighted several instances of spending that they believe is out of control. Sunday newspapers reported that Whitehall spends £3bn a year on travel, including £125m on taxis and £320m on hotels. Another £580m is spent on office furniture, it was reported, while the government has four separate offices in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
Now, I understood the real value of the UK office furniture market to be around £650m. This does not include other office equipment, which skews the figure to the £1.2b quoted by DEFRA in 2004.
So, as in many other areas of public sctor spending, the danger for the government is planning radical cutbacks in areas of spending that are not accurately defined or understood by those doing the planning.
In reality, the government spends nowhere near £580m on office furniture in a year. This would account for 89% of the market. Government spending actually accounts for approximately 9%.
Let’s hope the new government makes sure it has it’s facts right before it kills businesses left, right and centre.
