The North's Minister for Finance, Peter Robinson, has proposed the setting up of a "radical" overarching economic watchdog group that could save the Northern Ireland exchequer £700 million over the next four years.

The taskforce would involve business leaders and be "an all-powerful scrutiny body" to seek out multimillion pound efficiency savings in the public sector, Mr Robinson told the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy at their annual conference in Newcastle, Co Down, yesterday.

Mr Robinson's proposal comes as he also presses ahead with plans to sell off much of the Northern Ireland civil service estate, which over a similar period is hoped to realise a return of £1.5 billion.

Since the Northern Executive was established in May, Mr Robinson and other Ministers have laid particular emphasis on creating a "lean and mean" value-for-money government that differs in style and substance from the operations of British direct rule ministers.

Ahead of the Executive programme for government and budget, due in November, Mr Robinson told the financiers in Co Down yesterday that civil service reform and efficiency savings will be crucial in delivering the Executive's economic priorities.

Mr Robinson hopes to appoint a three-person watchdog with at least two of its members being senior figures in the private sector.

The Executive has an annual budget of £8 billion and yesterday Mr Robinson said that by 2011 this taskforce could produce savings worth £700 million to the Executive.

The plan is to channel savings into areas such as health, education, housing and transport.