SENIOR officers of Swindon Council have been given a tight deadline to draw up a blueprint for saving taxpayers millions of pounds.

And council leader Mike Bawden (Con, Old Town and Lawns) warned at last night's cabinet meeting that he would not accept anything "woolly".

He said: "I shall be looking for real figures and numbers all meat and no fat."

Chief executive Simon Birch and Gavin Jones, the director for cultural change, will be presenting a detailed programme for a radical new spending policy.

Last week the Evening Advertiser revealed that the council spends £100 million a year on new equipment but has no central purchasing department.

Some departments buy equipment at up to 40 per cent more than another pays for exactly the same goods.

The cabinet agreed in principle that a councillor should be designated a champion of good housekeeping to make sure taxpayers' money is spent wisely.

An officer will also be appointed procurement manager to pull together all the separate strands of the buying operation.

Coun Bawden added: "It's obvious we're not using our purchasing power as well as we could.

"I would like to see the savings we estimate we can be made through shrewd purchasing reflected in our 2004/05 budget, but I'm advised that this would not be in order. That's a shame because it's something that would most certainly be demanded in the private sector. Nothing short of a radical cultural about-turn will suffice.

"This has to be the year of delivery and excellence in performance and there can be no delaying that timetable."

He said that he was prepared to work in partnership with Wiltshire County Council in trading if it benefited Swindon financially.

"I've no hang-up about that," he said.

And Coun Garry Perkins (Con, Shaw and Nine Elms) believed that the council should show loyalty to Swindon businesses and always buy goods locally, as long as they were not more expensive than similar stock elsewhere.

"Why should we be spending our money in Bristol, for example, when it could be helping to generate the Swindon economy?" he argued.

Chief executive Simon Birch assured the cabinet that officers were "a long way down the line" towards putting the finishing touches to a strategy that would provide for a lean operation.

Michael Litchfield