Added to the ideas entered by public sector employees in the first phase of the scheme, this takes the total number of suggestions to help cut public spending to more than 100,000.

Recent submissions to the Spending Challenge website include the provision for private sector firms to hire rooms in local authority buildings for meetings.

Following the deadline for submissions, the website will close for a short period before re-opening with a new facility that allows visitors to vote on the ideas that have already been received.

A list of ideas submitted by public sector employees can already be seen on the HM Treasury website.

Submissions include a suggestion to centralise office stationery procurement and stopping the production of paper-based internal publications because it "would surely save a substantial amount of money and would be environmentally friendly".

Ideas submitted by the public sector illustrate the total disparity between cost control in the public and private sector, where the majority of the initiatives suggested will have been put in place years ago.

Speaking at the launch of the Spending Challenge, the chancellor George Osborne urged members of the public to get involved to help tackle the nation's staggering "debt problem".

"Tell us – where’s the waste, what should we cut out, what can we improve, what’s working really well that we should be doing more of," he said.