Employees, Environment, Public Policy

In macro terms, the Budget did little to threaten expectations among the pundits for an economic `soft landing', avoiding a major recession. Profitability in some industry sectors is clearly suffering, but overall the threat of a major down-turn leading to cuts in community budgets seems remote.

Gordon Brown's main attention has been in tinkering with the detail. The collection of interesting but modest plans on the green agenda, for employee involvement and to support small business should have an impact over time on the social and environmental issues addressed through corporate responsibility programmes.

His tinkering on tax reliefs for corporate giving are indeed welcome, but - as examined in detail in the `trends' section below - they fail to address the fundamental problem. One restores a relief which no one noticed had expired two years ago. The in-kind giving relief deals with Corporation Tax but not VAT, which is the major disincentive. The Charity Tax Review is wholly complacent about the impact complexity really has on corporate giving, presumably out of ignorance. Companies have three months to get their act together and make a submission, not for their own sakes but to maximise the resources available for community causes.

Corporate Citizenship Briefing, issue no: 45 - April, 1999