Courtesy of a Freedom of Information Request, it has been established that Leicestershire County Council spent in excess of £600,000 between 2009/10 procuring paper, stationary, printers and ink. In these times of austerity and technological innovation, it is time for figures such as these to be radically reduced.
In February, I blogged about Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council, who have been trialling a system of transferring all of their work over to taxpayer provided laptops. Although at first glance this looked like a monstrous waste of money, financially the scheme stacked up, promising £70,000 of total savings.
Being a much larger body, Leicestershire County Council has the potential to make a large swathe of savings with a bit of initiative and innovation. At present, they spend £201,122 on paper, £180,246 on stationary and more than £250,000 on printers and ink cartridges.
Granted, they do have a target of reducing this expenditure by 20% over the next four years. Surely though, for the benefit of taxpayers, these changes can go much further and happen much quicker in an attempt to help reduce the burden of cuts on frontline services?