CBI - offices - London homepage

The CBI has welcomed the 22 July Royal Assent for Crossrail. This east-west rail link will be a vital addition to the nation’s transport infrastructure that will benefit London and the wider economy, boosting London’s public transport capacity by ten percent. Business will be playing a crucial role towards funding the г15.9bn project and seeks assurance that government will uphold its funding commitment. Business will want to see the project delivered on time and within budget, in a way that minimises the disruption to Londoners. The CBI will continue to deliver these key messages to government and the delivery agencies.

Support for skills strategy

The business-led London Skills and Employment Board published the skills strategy for London in the middle of July. Formed at the end of 2006 the board was tasked with developing a strategy for post-19 year-olds. CBI London continues to work with the board towards the implementation of the strategy. The strategy’s aims are to create a fully integrated, customer-focused skills and employment system, to support employers in providing more jobs and skills opportunities to Londoners and to help them improve their skills and prospects through better employment and training opportunities. For more details please visit: http://www.london.gov.uk/lseb/docs/london-futures-report.pdf. There will be a presentation of the strategy at the CBI London HR Forum meeting on 19 November. For details please contact: jessica.otto@cbi.org.uk.

New London Business Survey published

The seventh CBI/KPMG London business survey was published on 19 June. This twice-yearly report provides an important insight into business sentiment and provides a valuable steer on where policy efforts need to focus. The findings reflect a discernible dampening of business sentiment. Sixty percent of respondents say London’s competitiveness is under threat – double that of a year ago. Twenty-eight percent are pessimistic about the outlook over the next six months – up from an average of 5% in previous surveys. And as many as 39% said they have been hit by the credit crunch. Transport and skills are also major concerns. This underlines the need for urgent action to tackle the weaknesses compromising London’s reputation as a place to do business.
Click here: to purchase a copy of the report

Business congratulates new mayor

The CBI congratulated Boris Johnson on becoming London mayor and said it looks forward to working closely with him. Welcoming Mr Johnson to the role, Richard Lambert, the director-general of the CBI, said: "Boris will bring vigour and enthusiasm to the mayor’s office and I wish him every success in the job. It is important the mayor continues to protect and promote the city’s strengths, as well as address its weaknesses, particularly skills, infrastructure and transport. I look forward to meeting him very soon to continue the strong dialogue the CBI has with the mayor’s office. I'm sure we can work closely together for the greater good of London."

He added: “Ken Livingstone’s contribution to the capital also deserves recognition. He has fought hard for the capital, winning the Olympic Games and helping to make the City one of the most successful financial centres in the world.”

Director of CBI London Nigel Bourne said: "There are three huge challenges ahead for the new mayor: tackling congestion and ensuring the transport network works; working with business to raise the skill levels of the city, and making the most of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Boris's 'Backing London Business' document presents some useful ideas, now we need more detailed proposals and the right advisors to help him to take these forward. Business involvement in this process is crucial." He added: "We look forward to working with the Mayor to find and develop effective answers to London's needs and to make it the best city in the world."

CBI support for Heathrow

In our response to last month's government consultation, the CBI strongly supported the case for giving Heathrow the capacity it will need for future growth through an additional runway, and until new runway capacity can be provided, using the existing two runways in ‘mixed mode’ for immediate benefits. Aviation is a vital sector of the economy, and Heathrow – the UK's most valuable aviation asset – is already operating at full capacity. Additional capacity is therefore vital. But we also pointed out that expansion must be sustainable – in terms of local environmental impacts and climate change. We welcomed the environmental criteria the government set out as conditions for expansion, together with its ongoing commitment to emissions trading. For a copy of our response please call Minakshi Roy on tel 020 7395 8125.

Skills strategy for London: CBI London response

CBI London submitted a robust response to the draft skills strategy put forward by the business-led London Skills and Employment Board. We welcomed the broad thrust of the strategy which we expect to be finalised in the spring. We also made a number of recommendations to further strengthen it. Our grateful thanks to the many members who dedicated considerable time and thought to providing feedback on this important consultation – a testament to its significance. Over the last year we have held a series of three special skills briefings led by Harvey McGrath, Vice Chair of the board, providing a powerful platform for exchange of views between the board and the wider business community. Over 50 organisations took part – large, medium and small, across a range of sectors including professional and business services, infrastructure, construction, and financial sector firms. Our key suggestions were as follows:

The strategy should prioritise the broad areas for action. Business placed greatest weight on the following three areas:

Changing aspirations of young people
Working with employers to tackle skills and employment challenges with employer engagement at all stages
A unified employment and skills system.

We called for delivery of some quicker tangible wins to help gain business confidence, and highlighted key features for each of these deliverables. In particular:

Setting up an effective brokerage system for organisations
Improving information, advice and guidance to individuals
Improving pre-employment training and general employability skills.

Further calls included:

We urged for further clarity and detail on how the new employer programme would work in practice
The strategy needs to emphasise that employers must have access to a workforce already equipped with basic literacy, numeracy and employability skills
Some SSCs need to be strengthened re-orientated before they can act as a lever for change
Several steps need to be taken to ensure apprenticeships work more effectively
The process of integrating the skills and employment structure, while important, needs to be kept as simple and clear as possible, guarding against too much focus on processes rather than outcomes
We called for an implementation plan to be established at the earliest to maintain momentum.

Winter briefing

Our winter briefing document (PDF 116kb) gives a summary of the latest policy developments in the capital andаhighlights where we need to focus our attention in the coming months.

If you need free Adobe Acrobat PDF reader software or help with PDF documents, go to the Adobe Accessibility site at http://access.adobe.com

Links to third-party sites are provided for your convenience. The CBI does not control these sites nor is it responsible for their contents. Inclusion of links does not imply endorsement of the site, business or organisation, or of the material displayed on these sites. Third-party sites will open in a new window.

Email us if you have accessibility requirements.