The government could save £20bn of taxpayers' money per year by 2008 through consolidation, process re-engineering and cutting 100,000 civil service jobs, according to Sir Peter Gershon's Efficiency Review.

Gershon, the former chief executive of Whitehall buying arm the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), discussed the technology implications of his review with representatives from government and IT suppliers at a roundtable discussion organised by Masons solicitors last week.

'The government can't easily borrow more money and raising taxes is politically tricky, so if they want to continue to put money into front line services, there is no choice,' he said.

'The government needs the money and that is the strongest possible pressure departments could have,' he said.

The successful realisation of Gershon's targets is not about more major technology programmes, but about better utilisation of what is already in place or in development.

'The efficiency savings are very dependent on government's existing commitments and the successful fulfillment of them, but I do not regard them as being overly dependent on significant new commitments,' he said.

Despite the media's emphasis on job cuts, the bulk of the efficiency savings will come from consolidation and simplification of back-office processes.

By consolidating the multiple systems in use across different departments and agencies, and re-using successful technologies developed by different parts of the civil service, Whitehall can make significant savings.

'In the back office there are significant opportunities for improving efficiency but in a lot of cases this can be realised by the significant simplification of processes. It would be completely wrong for some departments to bring in IT to underpin existing processes because that could make the problem worse,' said Gershon.

Mary Collis, central government director of supplier Vertex says the plan is about making better use of existing resources.

'This is not really about spending a lot, to spend less. It's about using it better through consolidation of what is already there,' she said.

Fujitsu Services chief executive David Courtley says there is a need to look at more re-use of technological capabilities across government.

'That is a good thing because that is an area of saving money and ensuring coherence and reliability,' he said.

The Efficiency Review may not be about new IT projects, but relationships with suppliers will be key to getting the most out of what is already there and making the most effective process changes.

But process change is not a one-off event that concludes with the signing of a contract, says David Gollancz, head of procurement and commercial contracts for the Treasury Solicitor's department.

'These are relationships and one of the cultural changes that could result from the Efficiency Review is a more confident, robust public sector managing the contracts, and private sector suppliers having a much better understanding of the business culture in the government,' he said.

The historic relationship between government and its technology suppliers has been a rocky one.

'We do seem to have a mandatory period of misery in most of the big contracts,' said Gollancz.

'It's partly because the private sector tends to bite off more than it can chew, and partly because the public sector procurement environment is not very commercially realistic.'

But the situation is improving, with help from initiatives such as the Gateway review monitoring process and the supplier code of practice developed by the OGC and trade body Intellect, says Courtley.

'Lessons have been learned from what has happened in the past both on government and supplier side. For a company like Fujitsu Services there is a greater recognition now that we have to be very responsible about the capacity we have and the resources we have to do the work for which we are tendering,' he said.

Project planning is also becoming better, but there is still room for improvement, says Gershon.

'When I left the OGC in March there were still projects going to the early stages of a Gateway review with a pre-determined go-live date and no plan of how to get from here to there,' he said.

Alongside the re-engineering of Whitehall's internal processes, government needs to push citizen take-up of online services.

'What was very clear in the course of the review was the need to significantly improve the quality of departments' take-up strategies for e-enabling services,' said Gershon.

'One of the key recommendations is that departments have got to be a bit more specific in terms of thinking through the balance between proactively encouraging citizens or business to use these services, and incentivising and in some instances mandating them,' he said.

'The balance between those three things has not been worked through.'

What is the Efficiency Review?

• Sir Peter Gershon, former chief executive of Whitehall buying agency the Office of Government Commerce, was asked by the Chancellor to conduct a public sector-wide review of civil service efficiency.

• The report, published in July, said £20bn annual savings could be made by 2008 through the streamlining and consolidation of back-office processes, encouraging citizen and business take-up of online government services, and the cutting of 100,00 civil service jobs.

• Departments are now working on detailed plans for how they will meet their efficiency targets, which will face independent evaluation before they are signed off.

• The efficiency savings are crucial to finding the funds committed by the Chancellor in the 2005-2008 Spending Review, announced in July, to continue the government's push to invest in front-line public services without being forced to raise taxes.