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Business leaders are either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with Government reform to public services, according to a new poll. The YouGov survey for members and associate members of the Business Services Association, found 71% were dissatisfied and 91% said the current political environment is not supportive of business - while 69% said that levels of public sector spending were likely to be the most important external influence on new business opportunities over the next three months. UK members of the BSA include Amey, Compass Group, Ecovert FM and MITIE Group and have a combined turnover of some £14 billion and employ 340,000 people providing outsourced services to the private and public sector Looking ahead at business prospects, the survey found that 54% of companies expected them to remain the same while 43% said they expected conditions to worsen over the next three months. There was also deep pessimism about levels of regulation with 89% saying that they expected the burden on business to get heavier over the next 12 months – none expecting it to reduce and only 11% saying they thought it would stay the same. Overall just 31% said that the business climate over the past three months has been unfavourable while 26% said it had been favourable and 43% said it was unchanged. Some 49% of firms said that they expected recruiting qualified staff to become more difficult over the next year and 49% said it was either going to become easier of stay the same. BSA chief executive, Mark Fox, said: ‘These findings send two strong and clear messages. Firstly increased taxation will damage our businesses and jobs. Secondly further regulation will harm our ability to be competitive. ‘All those who make demands to increase either tax or regulation at this very difficult economic time are threatening damage to business, their employees and customers alike.' Click here for more on YouGov

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BUSINESS

Business 'dissatisfied' with public service reform

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