The UK’s chief auditor has said he is open to learning from Elon Musk’s US department of government efficiency, as he gave a speech warning that the NHS and special educational needs funding systems are becoming unsustainable.

Gareth Davies, who leads parliament’s National Audit Office (NAO), said his organisation was looking at international comparisons as it examined spending in Whitehall departments.

Asked whether he was closely watching Musk’s new department, known as Doge, launched under Donald Trump to cut spending, Davies said he would be taking an interest and was “open to learning from anything”.

“Obviously, yes. Let’s see what happens and what to learn from it,” he said. “If it is possible to make very big savings whilst delivering the government’s priorities, then of course we should be interested in how that’s being done.”

Musk suggested at a Trump rally in New York last month that it would be possible to cut “at least $2tn” from US government spending by eradicating waste.

The NAO does not have such an executive role but it scrutinises government spending and highlights areas of waste, with Davies highlighting the £3bn of annual savings that had come from the watchdog’s recommendations.

Giving his annual speech in parliament, Davies, who is the comptroller and auditor general, said the public sector as a whole was suffering from poor productivity, and he highlighted the need for fundamental reform in the face of rising demand and costs alongside unsatisfactory outcomes.

He made the case that artificial intelligence should be “rightly at the top of the agenda” when it comes to improving productivity, with “clear potential for reducing the time taken for routine tasks”.

Davies also said the “situation is urgent” when it came to looking at areas of spending that had grown hugely in recent years.

“A succession of NAO reports have concluded that systems have become unsustainable. I think NHS demand is outstripping the capacity of the country to fund it in the current way, the special education needs budget has now been doubled, without a doubling of anything like the quality of outcomes. So, just if you start stacking up those patently unsustainable financial frameworks, then clearly we have to do something,” he said.

Alongside productivity, Davies said it was crucial for the UK to become better prepared for shocks and more resilient.

“Resilience is a word that’s cropping up repeatedly in our work, particularly since the pandemic, he said. “We have much evidence that money is wasted and services to citizens are compromised when we’re unprepared for what are now increasingly likely events, whether that’s pandemics, extreme weather or cyber-attacks.

“All this evidence points to the same thing: we need to be better prepared nationally and locally; to have sound risk management in place; and to be ready to adapt to new information and events quickly and effectively.”

A government spokesperson said: “AI has immense potential to transform public services, and too much of our public sector is reliant on archaic digital infrastructure. Our six-point plan to transform public services with technology will drive responsible AI adoption, give public services the tools they need to coordinate themselves, and repair the foundations of their infrastructure to ensure they are resilient and secure – this includes Gov.uk Wallet and AI tools that streamline administrative processes, enhance decision-making and boost productivity across departments.”