The first job for new transport secretary Philip Hammond is to make £683 million of cuts at the Department for Transport as the government takes a hatchet to the budget deficit. Chancellor George Osborne has announced a total of £6.2 billion in cuts.

Precisely which transport programmes are being cut is yet to be revealed, but the following savings have been identified across the whole government.

• £1.15bn in discretionary areas like consultancy and travel costs

• £95m through savings in IT spending

• £1.7bn from delaying and stopping contracts and projects, including immediate negotiations to achieve cost reductions from the major suppliers to government

• £170m from reductions in property costs

• at least £120m from a recruitment freeze across the civil service for the rest of 2010-11

• £600m from cutting the cost of quangos

• £520m by reducing other lower value spend.

Source: Logistics Manager