Spending cuts from the Ministry of Community and Cultural Development were motivated by the need to curb administrative overheads, according to Wayne Scott.Mr Scott defended his budget which was met with harsh criticism from his shadow counterpart Michael Weeks saying it was essentially prepared by the Progressive Labour Party administration but he had managed to reduce spending by $1.2 million over the 2012/13 budget with some efficiency cuts.“We inherited this budget that basically was already in train,” said Community Development Minister Mr Scott.“If anything we’ve been able to put the brakes on some things thus bringing the cost down some, because had we not been here the budget that would have been presented would have been worse.”Mr Weeks has decried the $1.2 million in spending cuts as the work of an “uncaring and callous” government.But Mr Scott explained that his efforts focused on trimming unnecessary overheads from a budget that had been prepared by the former administration.Ministries and departments have a strict end of October deadline to submit their budget requests. That means the budget being debated is primarily a Progressive Labour Party budget.Elected on December 17, the new Government had very little time to put its own stamp on the national budget.“This has been an absolute all-out sprint, all hands on deck — we’ve been working hard to get to this point because its very important to say and do the same things,” Mr Scott said.“I sat down with my directors and said as a team we have to be more efficient.”Mr Scott said that he cut roughly $470,000 from the youth and sports budget but that had been allocated for salaries and wages for posts that had not been filled.“It includes some consultants fees and such — which we’re pulling out, they don’t need to be there,” he said.“Grants and contributions are actually up by almost $300,000.”He said: “From what I can see the Progressive Labour Party Government had a chronic case of overhead-itis. Because overheads are just phenomenal.”In Child and Family Services, $682,000 had been cut out of the budget — another example of trimming waste on administrative overheads, the Minister said.“What I have challenged the team to do is: we have to be more efficient so that instead of spending money on overheads we spend money helping people. So when you look at the grants and contributions there has been absolutely no change from last year.”Similar overhead cuts had been made to the Financial Assistance department, but the Minister also acknowledged that grants and contributions in Financial Assistance had been reduced by $190,000 but the impact would be muted “with more efficiency.”He said: “So that $1.2 million decrease in social services actually nets out to be a $100,000 increase. And the big decrease has been $1.3 million in overheads.“So to argue that we’re not putting money in social services is disingenuous at best or outright misleading the public.”Mr Scott said that the PLP was “very good at saying one thing and doing something else”.The PLP inherited a budget with a “significant surplus” in 1998, whereas the One Bermuda Alliance inherited a multi-million dollar deficit and $1.5 billion debt.“You’re talking about a $2 billion swing between what they were handed and what they handed back.”The PLP were “not good at trimming fat, they were masters at adding fat — creating systematic inefficiencies”, he added.The Human Affairs department saw a $75,000 cut from its budget, the largest drop being in professional services ($55,000) followed by advertising and promotion ($12,000). But salaries and wages for its 13 staff members received modest increases, while the training budget doubled to $18,000 for the year.