The NI changes are going to cost my organisation £1000 per employee

[flashbac]

The NI changes are going to cost my organisation on average £1000 per employee, The lowering of the threshold alone is going to cost around £600 extra per employee.

We are heavily regulated with fixed income. We're a not for profit. Our customers expectations are increasing. We are now most likely going to have to somehow reduce our headcount now, and payrises for April are going to be off the table.

Just shaking my head really. Our employees don't deserve this. Hard to see how this isn't a tax on jobs.

The lowering of the threshold also means employers have to pay for more workers, because part time salaries are now dragged into it.

A lot of people reading this won't care. All I can say is this NI increase will also affect you. just think about Local authorities, childcare providers and other services. Do you think it won't affect your Councils services/tax bills, to give one example?

(I'm not a Tory bot btw, before anyone starts accusing me of being one. I voted Remain, don't support the Tories at all, can't stand Boris and his cronies.)

There's an analysis in The Times today of how many seats Labour would lose based on preferences six months in, with Reform being major winners and many of the red wall seats https://www.thetimes.com/article/2c841313-80cf-4eb3-a596-8fd24c927937?shareToken=e8330411880fd2c99a8c764092ceab288_ - however it's obviously very early to tell, but if there is some sort of wider strategy behind what Labour has done so far other than plug the hole in finances, it's not obvious to me.

Whilst i agree that Blair was different from Thatcher/Major, he did follow the same privatisation agenda, we saw the rise of the housing association, didn't build any council housing, didn't even allow councils to keep monies raised to build new council housing.

It was a debt-shifting exercise. Moving the social housing stock into Housing Associations shifted debt associated with building social housing off the public debt book. It also, in theory, moved it out of the sphere of local politics - which was why Thatcher baked into Right To Buy a restriction on LAs reinvesting the proceeds in social housing. There was quite a bit of political scandal in the 1980s around local authorities gerrymandering the vote through social housing provision. The consequences of this are still shaping social housing provision 40 years later, even if most people have forgotten why.

The UK housing situation is unlikely to improve much as long as there's a stigma around renting and social housing, and as long as the private rental market remains an unregulated free-for-all.

We have so many clients asking us for advice on closing down their businesses as they can't afford the NI increases 😢

We’re a charity with six staff so the increased employment allowance covers most of our rise, but I’m now only asking my trustees for one more staff member over the next two years instead of two as it will cover none of our additional costs on anyone more. We have operations in India and I expect further growth will be based there. If this policy stops lots of businesses taking on one more person it will cost way more than it makes in unemployment related benefits and slower economic growth.

Sorry, but the money has to come from somewhere.

Where is that some where when the private sector has been taxed into closing/off shoring? The productive workers taxed out of more hours/UK base. I’ll tell you shall I? The public sector and the state because there is no-one left contributing enough to pay for it all.

Bit dramatic. Also, not true.

Erm it is. Where is the money coming from? We are still in a deficit. That’s going to get worse with a shrinking economy. You do realise that when the private sector shrinks and job losses arise, there is less to take in tax. Less tax = less money for state. It’s mind boggling you don’t understand the connection.

Growth has stalled, the private sector is shrinking, redundancies are happening and have been pipelined, The City is shrinking and companies in that area are registering in NYC.

So where is the money coming from? There comes a point that raising taxes results in a net loss and here we are.

@Aduvetday well said. The complete lack of comprehension by some people (especially the government) of this blindingly obvious outcome astounds me.

Yep, same here. Not seen anything like it since the last recession. No one is coming in wanting to buy or set up a business, it's all longer term clients struggling to sell or trying to avoid insolvency. Very depressing.

Talk about Doom and gloom, are you usually this happy?

The economy is NOT shrinking, it stagnated over Q3, it shrunk last year, under Sunak.

City of London is second, behind NY, but up 3 ranking points, the next European centre is Frankfurt, in 10th - GFCI 36 Rank..

Canal + just listed in London, a company worth around 6 billion, not NY or Paris, why did ARM list in NY under the Tories? i doubt you posted such gloomy nonsense when that happened did you?

There was almost 500k new business starts up in the first 6 months of the year.

Blame Reeves all you want but the fact is she has to find the money to cover £10bn that Hunts NI cuts gave us but never funded, each and every year.

So either she stalls consumer spending by reversing them or she puts the costs onto business, which would you prefer?

There’s a section of non Labour voters (they get upset if you call them Tories) who are intent on talking the country down and are willing the government to fail for some reason. Given the God awful state we’re in (which certainly didn’t happen in six months) most sane people would want success, regardless of the colour of the government that achieved it.

Erm yes it is. The reports are all out there…

How many of those long-term clients looking to sell are older business owners that have happily bumbled towards the point they'd like to retire with no thought of succession?

I'm always amazed how many businesses I go into where the owner's retirement plan is to sell the business, but they've put no thought into how they could have ensured there was value in the business after they leave. Too much of the value is embedded in their personal knowledge and experience (and the book value is grossly over-inflated as a consequence). It's the great unspoken when it comes to the state of independent retail, and it's a building up to be a tsunami about to hit independent motor garages.

Do you mean that Starmer and Reeves are, in fact, closet non-Labour voters?

Because they did a brilliant job of talking the country and the economy down in their pre-Budget appearances.

Regardless of your personal political persuasion.

• Governments have to play it as a medium-term game over four years.
• The Opposition gets to wing it hour-by-hour with no responsibilities or consequences.

Also worth noting that Invest 2035 is due to be published Spring 2025 - I've been told to expect it in March, some of the immediate elements have already been hinted at to those that need to make preparations. It will set out the Government's industrial strategy for the next ten years.

Economic and industrial strategy isn't something a new government can rush into, in Opposition you can have aims and objectives but only after you're elected can you put these into place as actions and strategies.

Any chance you can sort out the CalMac ferry emergency slides? New obsolete parts needed! Asking for a friend...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq62j3z682lo

Not quite our area of expertise, RomingGnome!

Q3 revised growth is 0% thats not shrinking, however much you want it to be, even if Q4 growth is negative, its still not a recession, which we did have 12 months ago.

London, still worlds no2 Financial centre, despite a Tory led Brexit, which has cost and will cost the economy 100s of billions.

Yes, Tories want the country/Labour to fail, then they can get on with what they've been doing for the last 14 years and before that in 80s and 90s, of wrecking the UK and selling it off.

There is not a single public service, or a privatised service, that is doing better now than it was in 2010, indeed all are far worse.

So what exactly do Tory supporters want to go back too?

Your username - even spelt incorrectly is appropriate.

Bottoms line is we have too big a public sector, including the NHS and too many people dependent on welfare . I include pensioners, but obviously that’s not their fault.

We have too many people reliant on the state.

Whats the solution ? Because taxing working people and businesses seems the only way to make up for the shortfalls? Something needs to give.

They need to take make our civil service smaller, and get rid of NHS management and admin jobs for a start.

The NHS is undermanaged.

With pressures in NHS growing, it is vital that clinical staff can do their role and not be overburdened with administrative and operational business. Recent research by Institute for Public Policy Research suggested that the healthcare sector is under-managed, and this increases the burden of bureaucracy that falls on frontline professionals. They also found clinical staff needed managers to do the ‘managing’, freeing them up to do the ‘caring’.
Supporting this, we know the following:

• The NHS is under managed compared to international health systems and compared to other parts of the UK workforce.
• NHS managers make up circa 2 per cent of the workforce compared to 9.5 cent of the UK workforce in 2017 (at 3 per cent in 2023) .

Getting rid of NHS management and admin is the dumbest idea possible. Expecting frontline staff to provide admin and support roles and manage operations is absolutely guaranteed to drive inefficiency to the maximum.