I would make all benefits means tested ie does the likes of the Beckhams or Rooneys need Child Benefit? Similarly Winter Fuel Payment - alot of pensioners are sitting in their own homes they own with £100k+ in the bank. My friend also works in Benefit Fraud & can agree with a previous post that false claims are rife - even those aged 75+ are at it, failing to declare all savings & then claiming for Council Tax Benefit. I also know of someone who inherited £130k 4 years & is claiming everything under the sun...free school dinners,free laptops,working & child tax creds,child benefit etc etc & yet has paid the mortgage off has money in the bank & has failed to declare another cash in hand income for doing a friends books!! Info between agencies needs to be shared to really stamp this out.

It makes most financial sense to start with cutting expense from the big ticket items such as Social Protection and Health. I say that even as a Pensioner with Heart problems.
However, if you look at the pie chart at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UKExpenditure.svg
there is £72 billion wedge of "Other" expenditure that needs to be looked at too.
Maybe Education at £88 billion should also be looked at with the previous Governments' push to encourage almost every young person to study for a degree, no matter what subject.
Instead I suggest that the expenditure is limited to support and encourage young people to study for appropriate degees so that graduates in time will work in areas that provide a high level of revenue for the country and a source of tax to the State.

That wasn't the plan when the NHS was formed. It was thought that improvements in health would cause a natural cap on the expenditure.

However the NHS is paying out for things it shouldn't be. In 2005/6 there were over a quarter of a million admissions to NHS hospitals in England for
selected alcohol-related diagnoses (mental and behavioural disorders due to alcohol, alcoholic liver disease and toxic effects of alcohol). Hospital admissions for these diagnoses have virtually doubled since 1997. Overall probably around 1 in 16 of all hospital admissions are for alcohol-related causes.
Alcohol-related diseases account for 1 in 8 NHS bed days (around 2 million) and 1 in 8 NHS day cases (around 40,000).
The Strategy Unit calculated the cost to the NHS in England and Wales of treating alcohol-related conditions to be up to £1.7 billion per annum.

So if we could stop using hospitals as drying-out units for the Friday night befuddled we could make a hefty slice of savings.

It's tempting to cut overseas aid, but abolishing it entirely would only save £12bn, less than a 10% cut in NHS.

Social Protection - a stupidly high spend but hard to cut across the board without causing hardship. And if there are economies elsewhere in public spending (much of which is salaries) then unemployment is likely to rise.

Figures are probably for England/Wales only - Scotland has a higher per capita spend under Barnett formula and so could come in for some sensible economies.

So, apparently the UK is full of people who just cant be bothered to go to work and prefer to live on benefits. Rubbish! Yes, there are a small number. But it is insulting to suggest it is the majority. Most people in this position are there through no fault of their own. So instead of preaching the moral high ground we would do better to focus on eradicating genuine fraud and remembering that any of us could very quickly be in diffculties if we too lost our jobs. Also, where are all these jobs that people could be doing? Perhaps the stories of job losses in the recession are a myth then! Start with cutting the defence budget and learning to keep our nose out of other countries business.

Forgive my seeming naivety - if at all, but there is so much talk of government cuts to pay the deficit and extra borrowing. I dont see , read or hear anything said about the banks having to pay back the vast sums that got us into this mess. And surely with more bonuses and massive profits the bank are still announcing, why on earth are we the public having to fund ever more ammounts when we funded the bank bail out in the first place. Now we are expected to fund the deficit and extra borrowing as well !! I don't get it. Surely if the banks were propped up so much, if they have profits and such great sums to give bonuses, shouldn't they pay back their prop up's funded by the general public first?

social conscience wrote: "Forgive my seeming naivety - if at all, but there is so much talk of government cuts to pay the deficit and extra borrowing. I dont see , read or hear anything said about the banks having to pay back the vast sums that got us into this mess."

Unfortunately too many people believe this. The banking fiasco didn't help, obviously, but this Country was in a mess prior to this due to Labours policies. The banks were a convenient smokescreen for Brown, Darling and countless Labour ministers. Even now they are bleating that the figures disclosed by the Coalition Government are false and bloated. This Country, and certain elements within it, needs to wake up and face the facts. We are pretty well stuffed by the previous incompetance of the Labour administration who believed in a world of never never. Borrow more and more for pie in the sky schemes and the paying back will take care of itself. Well now it's time to pay back.

The biggest 2 ways to cut costs are to: -
1) Abolish overtime if it is regularly needed. Employ more staff that cover the overtime shifts in all deparments. That way the Overtime cost become 1x rather than 1.5x or 2x time.
2) All people employed by the goverment directly, by that I mean Civil servants, NHS, Police, Forces, Fire etc should get a paycut. What I hear you cry. Instead base all their Salary on the take home element of their wages. Basically make the Public sector a Tax free earnings zone based on Salary upto tbut not including the current 40% tax band. This would then reduce Employers NI costs and so on.
3) Yes I can't count, neither can the politicians. Reduce waste and making sure the staff are really doing the work they claim and fight pay rises for. How often have you seen council workers having extended tea breaks. Why do traffic lights get replaced to give them new bendy posts. If a building work is commissioned and quoted, why aren't the contractors held to the quote. Scottish parliment building springs to mind.

Get rid of free prescriptions in Wales and Scotland.

Give diabetic patients free testing strips so that they can be aware of their elevated blood sugar levels and act upon them - normal blood sugars means much reduced risk of health complications which are very costly to the individual and the nhs.

Stop recommending eating large portions of carbohydrates with each meal to diabetic patients as 'healthy' - it is carbohydrates that elevate blood sugars and therefore complications. Would you give an alcoholic vodka?

Clamp down on companies that supply the NHS, civil service, schools etc with stationery - these companies profiteer hugely from all government departments (lets add another couple of zero's to the invoice they all say)

Get rid of privatised cleaning companies/portering services etc in hospitals and allow the NHS to employ them directly - directed by the ward sister/matron so they are more accountable

Tax 'unhealthy' foods such as takeaways - tobacco has tax applied so why not burgers, fish and chips etc? Obesity rates are increasing significantly as are type two diabetes rates.

Stop child benefit at the second child point to those families claiming other benefits and make them aware that more children does not mean more government handouts!

Reduce the 'quality' of government initiative leaflets - do they really need to be on card? Do they really need stickers included?

There are my starting points!

1. HIP (health in pregnancy payment) - a complete waste of money. Also the £500 maternity payment should be scrapped or at the very least restricted to one payment instead of one payment per pregnancy.
2. Child Trust fund vouchers - with immediate effect.
3. Means test child benefit and restrict it to the first 2 children only.
4. No benefits for those who give up their jobs without a good reason - instead of the pathetic 26 week sanction.
5. Overturn the recent change in policy which now disregards 100% of child support payments for benefit claimants. Ridiculous that a PWC can receive hundreds in child support and still receive full benefits.
6. Introduce a cap on benefits so that no family can claim/receive more than the current minimum wage.
7.Reduce payments to claimants who are unable to work due to alcohol or drug dependency, or make it a condition of receiving supprt that they seek help with their addiction. At the moment there is no requirement on them to seek help, we just keep feeding their addictions.

Why and how do all ok most of the unemployed people in the uk have the latest fashion and I phone?
Why on my last trip to hospital why did I have to ask 6 nhs employees before I found a nurse the other 5 where office staff?
Why despite paying £1000 a year in tax to drive my car that I am also taxed on do I hit about 2 pot holes every 100mtrs?
Why are our forces sent by our politicians under equipped?
When was the last time you seen a bobbie on the beat I used to get collector cards from them?

I could go on but I have to go out and work I need to put some over time in there is a new I phone out and I am sure all the benefit fraudster are working on a way for me to pay for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CUT BENEFITS

Stop all jsa after 6 months.
No more child allowance or tax credits after the second child, its time to show some social responsibility and put a condom on it 'cos we ain't paying for it any longer.
Cap council spending, we don't need to be paying £40k for a weekend play time advisor.

Stop all payments to single mothers. Govt give 12 months notice from today that there will be no special treatment so cross your legs. This will ease the strain on social housing and will also stop generation after generation repeating the same mistakes and clogging up the estates with feral scum.

How sad that the most popular budget to cut is Overseas Aid. We're in trouble, but we still have enough to share a little.

I'd seriously look at the Police... Not because we don't need them but whether they actually operate in a cost effective way or basically just look after themselves?
I've experienced multiple situations where there are far far more officers sent to an incident than is necessary and as far as is my experience they just stand around waiting and being generally 'superior' and quite unhelpful. A friend is a Crime Scene Investigator and has loads of free time to 'pop home' or 'pop to the shops' etc whilst getting paid; on an 'afters' shift they have a rule that they don't go out to jobs less than two hours before the shift ends in case they can't clock off on time so they spend their time surfing the internet! On a night shift they all stop for breakfast at 5am and moan if anything urgent comes in and spoils it, and then they all get paid overtime if they have to stay on! At their admittance it's a doddle of a job and whilst I obviously don't want to see my friend personally affected, it grates big time that the rest of us are working hard and paying taxes for these people to have an easy life with a very good salary, pension and various other perks!
Unpopular I suspect, but I can only speak from personal experience and I firmly beleive that if the Police (and councils etc for that matter) were a private company, in my opinion they'd go bust!

All of these have vast scope for savings but they are all protecting their own backs and generous pensions at our expense.
The EU is not on the list and must be the most wasteful body ever and we have no control over it.
The Euro fiasco is going to cost us dear whatever they say.

Why just single parents. If neither parent is working and contributing to society this should equally apply to them.

Lets put an extra tax on 50" plasma tv's 'cos it only people on benefits that can afford them so we could claw some our our money back.

In my opinion

• Overseas aid should be cut completely.
• We should get out of the EU we are paying £6.4 billion this year which is double that paid of 2008 and £7.9 billion next year FOR WHAT?
• Anyone with a household income of over £40,000 p.a should not get Child Benefit or Child Tax Credits.
• Get rid of the child trust fund it is acomplete waste of time and money
• Get rid of translation services - if you live here you MUST speak and read English
• Sorry but if you are not born in this country and haven't worked here for at least five years you should not be entitled to free health care, education, being top of the list for housing or benefits of any kind including pensions, CTC, CB etc. How can you benefit from something you have never contributed to? This should help with immigration numbers as well. No discrimination on this whether you come from outside the EU or within the EU
• Cut Beauracracy in Schools, Health, and Social Services and cut overpaid management staff in these areas.
• Cut Quangos
• All councils should have a Government audit to see where money is being wasted
• Cut the amount of consultants used in local government.
• Scotland and Wales should have to pay for prescriptions why do we have to subsidise them when we are paying £7.50 per item make everyone pay £7.50 per prescription not item would be much fairer no matter how many items are on there.
• Get rid of NICE
• Income Tax and NI should go up by 1p in the pound

Some of these measures might be attacked by the pc brigade but I feel it is the only way to reduce the black hole this country finds itself in

I have not only visited but worked in many of the third world countrie that the government gives aid to. Anyone who believes that this aid manages to filter down through the governments of these countries to the poor people is living in cloud cuckoo land

I so agree with you bill-r it gets milked off by warlords and corrupt governments

An overhaul of the benefits system is well overdue.
Why do so many illegal immigrants wish to come here?
Answer is they get more help in the UK than anywhere else.
My solution is to make the maximum payment to anyone living on social security no more than a working person can earn at minimum wage rates of pay. This way the long term !!!!less who know how to milk the system for every penny will have to go without their tattoos, flat screen televisions, cigarettes, booze and foreign holidays etc. Same as the working person who works for the government mandated minimum wage.
Wonder how many would get off their backsides then?