Spring Statement: Productivity underpins the UK’s future growth prospects

Be the Business, a new private sector led organisation dedicated to improving the UK’s productivity, has welcomed the chancellor’s call for evidence to enable less productive businesses to learn from and catch up with the best.

Responding to Philip Hammond’s Spring Statement, Tony Danker, chief executive at Be the Business, said: “The chancellor was right to put improving business productivity at the heart of today’s Spring Statement. Narrowing the gap between the UK’s most and least productive businesses must be a top priority for the rest of this parliament and beyond.

“Improving management and leadership is a core part of driving business performance and this should be front and centre of the government’s productivity review. The UK has had a decade of productivity stagnation compared to our European neighbours; we now need a decade of out performance to make up for lost ground.”

“If lower performing businesses across the UK make even a modest improvement in their productivity, they could add another £130bn to the UK economy each year.”