THE thrifty new chief executive of Southampton City Council has ordered staff to switch off the lights to save taxpayers £40,000 in a campaign to root out wasteful spending.

Alistair Neill has pledged to lead by example as he ushers in a new money-saving era at the cash-strapped council which must find £25m over the next year to balance the books He has vowed to slash spending on refreshments, asked staff to ensure lights are turned off when out of council buildings, to pay for their own coffees and teas, to bring sandwiches for working lunches and to stop booking any external meeting rooms or venues when the council can us its premises.

The spendthrift regime comes as most council workers, excluding teachers, are being asked to take pay cuts between two and 5.5 per cent. Up to 250 jobs will also be axed to save £5.2m.

Mr Neill, who draws a £170,000 salary, said: “I will absolutely lead from the front.”

He said he had kitted out his office with “basic office furniture” and has even brought in his own pot plants and laptop to use for council business. He has also asked all staff to recommend possible savings in their own areas of work.

He said: “Local authorities up and down the country need to be much more business-like in everything that they do. They need to do everything they can to save money and drive down costs, while maintaining a good level of service.

“So much time is tied up – meaning many staff – in councils dealing with avoidable and pointless bureaucracy. In Southampton City Council we will set about becoming more businesslike and bearing down on bureaucracy to reduce costs.”

He added: “We must provide absolute value for money to taxpayers and that means stripping out any unnecessary costs.”

Mr Neill already plans to lay off up to 40 senior mangers, including two executive directors, to slice £2m from the wage bill.

He hopes to save hundreds of thousands more by making the council more “more customer focused” and sharing services with other organisations.

The former boss of Welsh council Merthyr Tydfil attracted controversy over a decision to fit a new £12,000 carpet in his and other directors’ offices in temporary ground floor offices.

He admitted: “Yes when an old flea-infested carpet in the basement of the Civic Centre which covers hundreds of square feet, needed replacing, I asked that it was replaced with a basic value for money one.

“And I insisted beforehand that this new carpet will be re-used in the civic centre again and again for years to come until it becomes torn and flea- infested once more.”

“This is about changing the culture of our local authority working, and I believe that the vast majority of our excellent staff are fully behind this approach.”