Preparation of central government productivity programme begins

In its meeting on 12 September, the Ministerial Committee on Economic Policy decided to begin preparing the central government productivity programme specified in the Government Programme.

A working group led by the Ministry of Finance will be appointed to prepare the productivity programme. The working group will include representatives from all the ministries and will begin work swiftly in September. The aim is to specify joint measures and for the ministries to identify the key measures for their branches of government with the support of the working group by the end of 2023.

The implementation of the productivity programme will harness the potential of digitalisation to improve the efficiency of the public sector. As part of the productivity programme, a public sector premises programme will be launched to rationalise the costs of premises used by the public sector and to find solutions to unresolved real-estate questions between the central government, wellbeing services counties and municipalities. The central government’s use of premises will be rationalised and the objectives of the central government premises programme will be updated to reflect the post-pandemic transformation of work, without compromising the availability of services.

The productivity programme may also involve structural reforms, reorganisation of functions and increasing the share of external financing in various functions. In addition to the operating expenses of government agencies, the package includes the expenses of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Metsähallitus and other items similar to operating expenses.

The aim is to include a EUR 30 million appropriation in the supplementary budget proposal for 2023. The appropriation will particularly support the progress of joint projects that enable increased productivity.

The Ministerial Committee on Economic Policy will discuss the preparation of measures at the end of the year. After this, the ministries will incorporate the euro amounts of the effects of the measures to be implemented in their branches of government into their spending limits proposals for 2025–2028. The spending limits proposals will be submitted in January 2024. The Ministerial Committee on Economic Policy will then monitor implementation and, if necessary, outline changes for the rest of the parliamentary term.

The preparation of the productivity programme is part of the Government Programme. The measures aim to achieve total savings of EUR 90 million in 2025, EUR 134 million in 2026 and EUR 243 million as of 2027.

Inquiries: Mika Niemelä, Director General of the Budget Department, tel. +358 295 530 525