In response to todayís Budget statement John Philpott, Chief Economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) comments as follows:
ìGordon Brownís final Budget has proved both his least predictable and cleverest. Revenues lost by headline grabbing cuts in the basic rate of income tax and corporation tax are made up by numerous tax rises pasted into the Red Book, notably removing the 10p starting rate of income tax, greater alignment of income tax and national insurance contributions, more corporation tax for small firms and fewer capital allowances.
ìBrownís smartest political act is to dip into the policy manuals of his Conservative and Liberal Democrat opponents whilst also giving them a Green tinge. And by making the overall package redistributive, benefiting in particular low income families with children and pensioners, including the victims of bankrupt occupational pension schemes, the Chancellor has appealed to his own Labour supporters as he prepares to enter Number 10.
Education and training:
ìWith regard to measures of specific interest to the HR community the Budget contains some interesting items but is overall lacklustre.
ìWhile the CIPD welcomes the Chancellorís announcement of an additional increase in annual spending on education and training of 2.5% in real terms in the next few years, details of how the Government intends to implement the recommendations of last yearís Leitch review of skills will not be published until the summer.
ìThe CIPD also welcomes the Green Paper (due for publication tomorrow) on how best to raise the age of compulsory education and training to 18. However, it will be important to ensure that any such move does not compromise existing work based training for teenagers.
Welfare to work:
ìThe CIPD is most encouraged by the welfare to work provisions of the Budget which echo some of the approaches the Institute has been recommending as ways of helping employers make better use of the existing large groups of ëcore joblessí. The CIPD fully endorses the idea of Local Employment Partnerships (LEPs) between large retailers and JobcentrePlus, which will experiment with just the kinds of measures we advocate ñ short work trials, higher recruitment subsidies, employer mentoring and reform of job application procedures. If well designed, LEPs could provide a model for non-retail employers too and promote a new form of ëdiversity in actioní.
ìIn this respect the CIPD also supports trials of improved English language training for jobless people with language difficulties and, in particular, efforts to link New Deal training with Train to Gain. Only if increased access to jobs is matched by job retention and movement up the skill and income ladder will the least advantaged in the labour market, and those who hire them, benefit most from welfare to work measures.î
Brown makes smash and grab on other partiesí policies to deliver ëcut and paste budgetí
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