In his recent emergency budget, Chancellor George Osborne outlined plans for Government spending to be cut by an average of 25% a year over four years. The only departments to be excluded from cuts are health and international aid, with education and defence to be treated sympathetically.
This means BIS – the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and one of the bigger spending departments – will be facing serious cutbacks. BIS has more than 6000 staff – an obvious place to start and voluntary redundancies are already being sought – but cuts in staff will not be enough.
The exact level of cuts won't be apparent until October, when the spending review is complete, but work is now underway to identify where savings can be made. Already, BIS' budget has been cut by £836million – the largest of any department – as part of the incoming Government's £6.25billion cuts package. Now, it could have to cut another £4bn a year.
What might go? BIS is the paymaster for a number of organisations relevant to the electronics industry; organisations which are seeding the technologies which will help the UK's economy to grow. Would the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), widely recognised as doing good work, go? Would the TSB do away with the Knowledge Transfer Networks? How much would be cut from the EPSRC's funding for academic research? The list goes on.
BIS secretary Vince Cable is on record as saying: "My department will be the department for growth. We need to develop a stronger, more balanced economy that is less dependent on the City by building on the strengths of our manufacturing and knowledge industries."
It will be interesting to see how he reconciles this statement with the forthcoming cuts to his department's budget.
