Excuse me for roaring like an angry wookie at a treachery that’s seen the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) scrapped and industrial strategy looking like something from a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.
What an utterly brainless deicison to axe MAS- a service that’s helped UK manufacurers generate nearly £5billion in gross value added since 2012. To justify the cull as ‘saving’ the taxpayer £84m, as DBIS have done, is as catastrophically stupid as farmer Brown cutting the head off his fabled goose and then looking for applause as he holds the last gilded egg aloft.
This comes from a business secretary who really should know better. Sajid Javid has worked at some of the world’s top investment banks and should be an expert on ROI. MAS created 110,000 jobs, helped 28,000 busiensses and helped SMEs raise £155m in finance in three years.
A frontline manufacturer told me how MAS offered them an accessible and cost-effective port of call. They had sent 50 employees on a CI training course with MAS a few years back and were still receiving the paybacks now. That is not a lone voice. Case studies proclaiming £100,000 savings and 250% increases in turnover are splashed all over the MAS website.
In trurth Javid and hiS DBIS team are mere supplicants in the chaNcellor’s wider spending review. George Osborne slashed DBIS budgets by 17%. In contrast the defence budget will increase by 0.5% annually, the NHS by £10billion to 2021 and we’re ringfencing cash to ensure free access to museums for all.
That’s just as well George because unless you and your boneheaded colleagues revive the industrial strategy then you could just have condemended many manufacturers to become future exhibits.
