Government undertakes Consultation on the Productivity Review

26 Jun 2018

Raising productivity is one of the government’s key priorities and is core to the UK’s Industrial Strategy.

As part of their approach to improving the business environment, the Industrial Strategy white paper announced that the government would launch a review of the actions that could be most effective in improving the productivity and growth of small and medium-sized businesses.

This review is focused on improving the productivity of businesses with lower productivity, sometimes described as a ‘long tail’ that lags behind the leading firms and underperform relative to domestic and international benchmarks.

There is a call for evidence that will inform the teams running this review. It seeks evidence relating to firm-level factors that may impact productivity – these are decisions that are controlled by and / or taken within individual businesses.

The review will build the government’s understanding of how firm-level interventions, by public and private sector actors, can support growth and improve productivity for the long tail of low productivity businesses. It aims to:

• improve Government understanding of high and low productivity businesses, and the practices driving the performance of each
• improve Government understanding of the market in which interventions operate
• explore which interventions by the public sector and private sector are effective in improving the practices that drive business productivity, including the ways in which information is communicated

This review will report its findings to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Autumn 2018. The output of the review will be used to help inform the next steps on the delivery of the Industrial Strategy.

BFPA, through its membership of EAMA, the Engineering & Machinery Alliance, will be contributing but members who would like to make a direct submission should visit

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/business-productivity-review-call-for-evidence