AMONG figures released by Health and Social Services yesterday, perhaps the most significant is that, on a like-for-like basis, it has cut spending by £5m. over one year.

That is a 5% reduction over 2009.

This, for a department which has long insisted that it is a hostage to medical inflation, is akin to the Titanic turning on a sixpence.

So, what’s changed?

It is perhaps too simple to put it all down to one man, even if he is the boss.

Accountant Mark Cooke’s arrival as chief officer in February is undoubtedly a major factor but if his parsimonious approach has effected a 5% cut in just eight months it is an astonishing achievement.

More likely is that the dawn of enlightenment was breaking on HSSD even before the new chief officer took up his post. No one could think it sustainable to post another 14% year-on-year rise and the political pressure on the department to show restraint was enormous.

But regardless of who is responsible, the result is heartening.

The only caveat to that must be that this is just the beginning.

For all the progress made by HSSD’s ‘enormous efforts’, the department is still over budget, possibly by as much as £3m.

Worryingly, the minister has already admitted that spending will increase in 2011. Success must be measured then in whether the budget leans towards the ‘challenging’ or the ‘realistic’.

The same could be said for the States as a whole. Other departments will point out that they were never as profligate as HSSD but it is a sobering thought that were such cost-cutting mirrored across the States as a whole more than £16m. could be saved each year.

Senior civil servants and ministers will tell you that cannot be done in a year. But, as has been shown with HSSD, it can be a simple matter of greater ambition, a willingness to focus on the problem areas and better information about what is going wrong.

That all stems from quality leadership – something not all departments can lay claim to.