Spending Review doesn’t bring much needed confidence to businesses

Chancellor Rachel Reeves made the Spending Review announcement earlier this week, but it was met with some disappointment from businesses.

Responding to the Spending Review, Tania Bowers, Global Public Policy Director at the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), said, “The Chancellor’s announcement didn’t reveal any surprises, however it did feel more like a Spending Review promising future returns, rather than one giving much need confidence to businesses today.

“Future-proofing the UK’s budget is a necessity, but it’s perilous to overlook the corporate landscape. Companies are nimble and move quickly, so while we welcome investment in longer-term skills and economic growth, the short-term must not be neglected.

“Unfortunately, we are already seeing the impact of this oversight, with offshoring and hiring freezes being more acutely felt. Unemployment levels are now at their highest levels in nearly four years, and reports today suggest that a quarter of a million jobs have been lost since the Autumn Budget. This needs to be urgently addressed.

“The current situation isn’t being helped by the Government’s approach to the professional staffing sector. Reforms to employment regulation may be required, but not to the detriment of an accessible and flexible workforce.

“It was disappointing to hear the Chancellor reference the ban on zero-hours and fire & rehire practices in her speech, for example. Yes, exploitation needs to be stamped out in the workforce; however, an unnecessarily rigid process won’t be beneficial for anyone, particularly not skills short remits such as healthcare and the NHS.

“As we highlighted in our response to Wes Streeting following the announcement that agency workers and temporary staffing firms would be limited in use across the NHS, a reduction of access to flexible resources will be damaging in the short term.

“The detailed Spending Review document suggests that this practice is being extended across other Government Departments, with the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) also being tasked with reducing reliance on contractors.

“The focus on skills and training is something we certainly welcome. The money for skills is clearly focused on the young, construction workers and getting the economically inactive back into work, which are all sensible steps. However, this needs to happen in parallel to building up more technical skills, particularly given the focus on AI. Boosting training and apprenticeships for young workers is necessary, but so too is greater flexibility around skills investment outside of this demographic, which industry leaders have long called for.

“Given the lack of comprehensive impact assessment the Government is hedging its bets that British business will suck up the costs and uncertainty of the fundamental labour market change the Employment Rights Bill promises. Only business can deliver the much-needed growth to support this Spending Review.

“We fear that their optimism is unfounded, given the potential for international outsourcing.  We ask them to reconsider the breadth of the measures and undertake detailed updated impact assessments now, whilst the Bill is still in Parliament.”

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