The proposals set out by the CBI include the following:

[I]mproving workforce management by adopting good private sector practice, including better management of staff sickness and temporarily freezing the public sector pay bill. This could yield £27bn savings by 2015.

In a related document entitled Doing More With Less (PDF format, 251.9K) (external website), the CBI goes into much greater detail on its ideas for increasing public sector efficiency.

Regarding public sector pay, the CBI says:

Freezing the pay bill at 2010-11 levels for two years could save a total of £19bn by 2012-13. This is not a pay freeze but rather a freeze to the total public sector wage bill. It would be a matter for individual departments or bodies to decide what strategy they might take for all or part of their workforces.

Regarding public sector absence management, the CBI argues that there is much that the public sector could learn from private sector employers. Each year, comparative surveys tend to highlight an ongoing disparity between public sector absence rates and those in the private sector. For example, 2008 benchmarking research from IRS found that absence rates tend to be higher in the public sector (subscription required). The CBI report notes:

If the public sector could reduce its average absence to the average level in the private sector, £1.4bn would be saved each year, resulting in total savings of £8.4bn by 2015-16.

The CBI argues that current Government projections radically underestimate the extent of the budget deficit. The public spending cutbacks required to tackle the deficit must consequently go further than those already broadly outlined by the Government. The CBI says:

[T]he Government will need to take an extra £120bn out of current spending plans to balance the books. [...] £50bn will need to be found between now and 2013 to allow for a slower economic recovery than the government is predicting, and a further £70bn will be needed after 2013 in order to balance the budget by 2015-16, rather than by 2017-18 as set out in the April Budget.

Chancellor Alistair Darling's Pre-Budget Report 2009 is expected to be published in November 2009, although the exact date is not yet known. We will be live-blogging Darling's Pre-Budget Report 2009 speech here on Employment Intelligence on the day that it is delivered.