Skills shortages could hamper London's economic recovery as four in ten of the capital's businesses still say they have problems finding the right talent, despite rising unemployment, a CBI / KPMG survey reveals.
And efforts to close London's skills gap are being frustrated as almost half of senior executives answering the survey said that publicly funded training and skills support was not relevant or useful.
The recession continues to take its toll as business values have fallen again and spending plans are at a survey low. Firms are also finding it difficult to access credit, are making redundancies, and are struggling to make future business plans amidst the uncertainty.
More positively, 80% of respondents said the capital was still a 'good' or 'very good' place to do business. Firms have become slightly more upbeat, with 35% saying they are optimistic or very optimistic about the next six months, compared with 28% last September.
Rising to the challenge – a document launched in May, sets out the mayor's proposals for London's Economic Development Strategy.
Anthony Browne, the mayor's policy director, briefed the CBI London Council about the framework in early June. We will be arranging further discussions with members on this. The main themes of the strategy are:
Position and promote London as the undisputed business capital of the world
Ensure that it has the most competitive business environment in the world
Make it a leading global low carbon capital
Give all Londoners the opportunity to share in London's economic success
Invest to ensure growth is spread across London, and in particular outer London.
The mayor's vision is to make London the business capital of the world by creating a global centre for excellence across a range of sectors including high-tech, medical services, low carbon technologies and creative industries.
The strategy proposes establishing a 'Promote London Council' to market the capital's existing strengths. Go to http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/publications/2009/05/rising-challenge.jsp for more information.
We attended a ceremony to mark the start of construction of the Crossrail project in Canary Wharf in May.
Guests at the event heard from the prime minister and the mayor of London, both of whom re-affirmed their commitment to the project and stressed its importance in terms of providing a step change in public transport capacity but also as a key driver for creating jobs in London.
We have been a long–standing supporter of the project and together with other leading business groups reiterated this message in a letter to the Financial Times to coincide with the ground breaking ceremony.
A select group of members questioned UK deputy ambassador to China Chris Wood on issues affecting their business. Top issues included the global downturn – its impact on the Chinese market and what that means for UK companies – whether China is walking the talk on resisting protectionism, and its evolving role on the world stage.
Paul Boateng, the UK's high commissioner to South Africa, also addressed London members. The discussion focused on key political and business issues in South Africa – particularly timely given the forthcoming elections.
We recently held high-level discussions with the mayor's team, Transport for London and the London Development Agency who are gearing up to develop a long term mayoral transport strategy and economic development strategy up to the year 2031.
We have welcome the aim to develop an integrated approach and have urged for a realistic, practical and flexible approach to plans. An issues paper for each of these areas is expected in May and we will approach members for views and feedback when more detailed proposals follow in the summer.
We continue to be closely involved in the mayor's Economic Recovery Action Plan to help mitigate the impact of the recession.
The group chaired by minister for London Tony McNulty and including CBI London director Nigel Bourne and mayor Boris Johnson met recently to identify actions to help business.
These included:
More apprenticeships in public sector contracts
Better publicity of support for business
Promoting wider use of CompeteFor – the online system to bring together buyers and suppliers of Olympics contracts
Lobbying government to bring forward transport infrastructure projects.
Visit http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/economy/recovery/ for more information.