LONDON (Reuters) - The government began its campaign to slash the deficit on Monday by scrapping public funding for a Brazilian-style dance troupe with percussion.

The Tory/LibDem coalition took office last week promising swift and tough action to rein in public spending, but details of exactly where the axe will fall have been scarce.

The new minister in charge of the Department for International Development (DFID), Andrew Mitchell, wasted no time in finding ways to save money, announcing on Monday the immediate cancellation of five DFID “awareness projects.”

These included a Brazilian-style dance troupe in Hackney, plans to run stalls at summer music festivals and a project to train nursery school teachers about “global issues.”

Scrapping the five projects will save over half a million pounds while a further stop has been put on projects totalling more than 6.5 million pounds, Mitchell said.

These are tiny amounts compared with a government target of 6 billion pounds in spending cuts this year, but as in a decision by ministers last week to cut their own pay by 5 percent, the message was as important as the money.

“Today I send a clear signal: value for money will be our top priority for aid,” Mitchell said in a statement.

“People want to see British aid money saving lives and educating children in the world’s poorest countries,” he said, adding that the dance troupe and other cancelled projects were not giving taxpayers value for money.