Competitiveness
London First works to ensure we have the right fiscal framework for recovery, making London’s case in Government spending decisions and processes.
London has been a beacon of economic success in the last 10 or 15 years. Our businesses, led by the financial services sector, have gone head to head with the world’s best. Now the world has changed.
The Government faces major challenges in designing policies that will both enable a return to a balanced budget and support sustainable long-term economic growth. London First’s report - Supporting UK growth while balancing the budget - summarises an approach to reconciling these two objectives from the perspective of business in London.
Key themes:
Efficiency gains should be the starting point for reducing government spending. By involving more private sector experience and expertise in delivery, substantial savings should be possible. Building on this report, we have published a further paper, A Job Worth Doing, seeking to help shape the Budget and comprehensive spending review in autumn 2010.
A framework for decision-making, based on robust and consistently-applied cost benefit analysis, will enhance the credibility of choices and decisions being made, where expenditure cuts prove necessary.
Maintaining planned investment in London’s transport infrastructure is critical to the country’s future growth. The committed public expenditure is substantial – but modest compared with the scale of London’s economy and the benefits it will bring to the UK as a whole. Read more
Tax policy - a crucial element of London and the UK’s competitiveness - must take account of the factors that underpin the capital’s success, including the highly mobile nature of money and people in and out of London and London’s role as a global business centre. Read more
Supporting UK growth represents the views of a steering group comprising members of London First and the City of London Corporation, co-chaired by Stuart Fraser, Chairman of Policy and Resources of the City of London, and Ian Powell, Chairman and Senior Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
The steering group report draws on a longer report, commissioned by London First and prepared by LECG, a global expert services and consulting firm.
Supporting UK growth while balancing the budget
Steering group report
LECG full report
London First Partner Perspective by Ian Powell, co-chair of steering group and PWC chairman
Contact Jane Archer
