Posted: 06th Oct, 2011 By: MarkJ


The
Institute of Directors (IoD), which claims to be Europe's largest membership organisation for business leaders, has called upon the UK government to "
ring-fence" infrastructure spending (i.e. energy, transport, ICT / broadband etc.) as part of its
Top 15 Proposals for helping the country return to growth.
The proposal itself was made as part (no.6) of the IoD's latest policy paper, '
The Route Back to Growth', which also calls for various other changes like a second round of
quantitative easing (initially worth £50bn) and
extended corporation tax cuts.
6. Ring-fence infrastructure.
Spending on transport, energy and ICT infrastructure needs to become a key priority in a way that it hasn’t been in the past, given the investment in new infrastructure by our competitors. Key infrastructure spending declines significantly in the Spending Review, with overall public sector gross investment falling from £59.5 billion in 2010-11 to £47.1 billion in 2014-15,10 a decline of 20 per cent in cash terms.
We have argued that this is one of the key areas of public spending which should be ring-fenced, given its positive impact on long-term potential output growth, and there is a great range of improvements that could and should be made to Britain’s road and rail networks, as well as vital energy upgrades. The focus of spending reductions should be on current expenditure.
The IoD also fears that the UK governments current broadband infrastructure spending commitment, which promises
£530m to help deliver superfast broadband (24Mbps+) ISP services to 90% of the population by 2015, are not ambitious enough.
The Route Back to Growth (PDF)
http://www.iod.com/MainWebSite/Resources/Document/policy_paper_GrowthPlanReview2_290911.pdf