GWE Business West brought business leaders together with public sector representatives in Swindon to watch George Osborne deliver his long-awaited Spending Review.
Representatives from Swindon Borough Council, SSEP, Alder King, Wiltshire Police Authority, Withy King and many more attended the event to talk about the impact of the cuts and the issues of concern to business. The overall view was that the Spending Review could have been worse for business.
Ian Larrard, Director of the Initiative in Swindon and Wiltshire, GWE Business West said: “The initial reaction of our members is that it is not as bad as expected, with cuts of 19% rather than 25% as predicted.
“With the private sector employing four times as many people as the public sector, the question is can private sector employment grow by 2% to replace the 8% (490,000) expected public sector job cuts over the next four years?”
“Details of actual cuts are already emerging and ‘the devil will be in the detail’ over the coming weeks and months.”
The positive messages that business took from the announcements include:
- Commitment to tax increment financing that allows local authorities to borrow against increases in locally collected business rates
- A further £1/2 bn in the Regional Growth Fund to extend this for 1 year
- Potential opportunities to be provided by the establishment of the Green Investment Bank (£1bn funding to lever in additional investment in sustainable energy and transport projects)
- Increase in the education budget, to support schools and local education
However there were also significant concerns around the following key issues for business growth:
- The decision to cut the UKTI programmes by 25% when they deliver direct export support to business.
- Decisions to axe programmes like Train to Gain are less of a surprise but still disappointing.
- Lack of clarity of key infrastructure schemes in our area – we await further announcements before we will know which, if any, transport schemes have survived.
- Impact of the defence review, in particular on the supply chains across the West of England, where many SMEs rely on defence contracts to survive.
