Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has announced £5.5bn of efficiency savings in government spending.

Mr Maude said the coalition was "determined to go even further" in its aim to "cut the cost of Government".

The cash savings, he stressed, had been independently audited with "no smoke and mirrors", and were the equivalent this year of around £500 for each working household in Britain, the salaries of around 250,000 junior nurses or the cost of around 1.6 million primary school places.

The coalition set up the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG) based in the Cabinet Office, on taking office 27 months ago, to make "efficiency savings" across Government.

Mr Maude said: "It seemed to us absolutely crucial, that as we drove the deficit reduction programme, the priority rather than cutting frontline programmes, should be to cut the cost of Government."

He added: "In the first year, a short year, until March 2011 we saved £3.75 billion. This last year to March 2012 we beat our own prediction and saved an astonishing £5.5 billion from departmental expenditure ... but we are determined to go even further."

Mr Maude said the savings drive was "broadly ideology free", adding: "This is just about running Government in a business-like way."

The Government, he argued was "determined to cut the fat from Whitehall", but insisted it was "not cutting into the bone".