Yvette Cooper has set up her own Elon Musk-style unit to root out Home Office waste.
The Home Secretary’s ‘DOGE’ division has already started freezing contracts deemed to be a misuse of taxpayers’ money.
It is modelled on Mr Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has been overhauling the US civil service. Government sources said the unit will ‘scrutinise and oversee every penny’, and is already looking at limiting the use of external consultants.
Expensive ‘away days’ that involve hiring external venues are also likely to be banned, insiders said. The move comes after the department hired an opulent central London ballroom to hold an event for civil servants last month.
A source said: ‘We have a lot of spaces the Government owns across Whitehall. These can be used instead of spending money on hiring external venues.’
A weekly meeting will see the DOGE unit go through every contract the department is planning to approve, scrutinising any that appear wasteful. It will be headed by Home Office minister Lord Hanson and Damian McBride, a former key aide to Gordon Brown and a veteran political bruiser.
The unit was set up after Ms Cooper found the department had earmarked £3 million over the next three years for digital graphics and filming from a Soho-based PR agency, as well as £100,000 for leadership training from Deloitte.
The planned contracts were the ‘last straw’, sources said, and Ms Cooper ordered both to be paused. There is growing pressure from the Treasury for Cabinet ministers to find savings in their departments.Â
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s DOGE unit has already begun freezing contracts deemed to be a misuse of taxpayers’ money
Ms Cooper’s unit is modelled on Mr Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has been overhauling the US civil service
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to see her fiscal headroom slashed prior to next month’s Budget, raising the likelihood of public-sector cuts.
Lord Hanson has already conducted two spending reviews that identified millions of pounds of savings, which were redirected to support neighbourhood policing.Â
Previously, only contracts over £5 million would be sent for sign-off from officials to ministers or their advisers.Â
But now, any contract of any value will need to be signed off by the DOGE team, which held its first meeting last Wednesday, according to sources.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves (pictured) is expected to see her fiscal headroom slashed prior to next month’s Budget
It is already looking at a ban on the use of external headhunters by the Home Office when filling departmental roles, and plans to crack down on managers ‘splurging’ at the end of a financial year to ‘use up’ unspent money.
A source said Lord Hanson wanted to cut down on this culture, adding: ‘We are living in fiscally straitened times. We are trying to drive much better planning and management.’
Labour MP Jake Richards, who sits on the Home Affairs select committee, said: ‘It’s right the Home Secretary is getting a grip so that more money can be directed towards the Government’s plan for more police and secure borders.’
