The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) has released their set of recommendations to the UK government on how best to aid the economic recovery and build resilience for future crises.
Overall there are 20 recommendations that fall into four key areas:
Providing businesses and consumers with confidence to invest and do business.
The main focus here is around temporary taxation cuts, such as lowering VAT, which was experienced in light of the 2008 financial crash and is already being witnessed in the recent hospitality sector VAT cut to 5% until 12th January 2021. CIMA also recommends a growth accelerator scheme for promising start-ups and small business in England, with a programme “offering them access to mentoring, coaching, financial
guidance, and expert professional advice”.
Reducing uncertainty for businesses.
Businesses need certainty for the short-medium future which can be achieved by outlining tax plans for the upcoming years as well putting on hold any material changes to business regulation until the economic crisis has passed. There has been growing support to delay the IR35 reforms due to go live in April 2021 and this could well be an example of the government achieving certainty for businesses.
Creating a more sustainable business environment.
Can we take the opportunity to invest in green infrastructure and make it easier for businesses and consumers to support a net zero target? In addition to that the UK should adopt a more integrated reporting approach to not only focus on financial information and therefore allow non-financial factors to be targeted, tracked and achieved.
Investing in skills to help generate economic growth and improve productivity.
CIMA focusses heavily here on utilising and enhancing the apprentice market. Investing towards a higher level of apprenticeships will raise the skills levels of the UK workforce for years to come whilst tackling the growing number of young unemployed personnel.
The full list of 20 recommendations the CIMA publication can be found here:
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