AAT Public Affairs & Public Policy activities (November 2018)

Every month AAT highlights some of the key Public Affairs & Public Policy activities undertaken on behalf of our 140,000 members.

Below you will find some key highlights for November 2018.

If you would like any further information about any of these issues, please contact Phil Hall, AAT Head of Public Affairs & Public Policy via twitter or via email.

AAT Alternatives to Tax Rises 

AAT’s September 2018 report offering a range of alternatives to tax rises or increased borrowing to better fund public services continues to gain political and media attention.
 
In November, the report was acknowledged by both serving and former Treasury Ministers, a number of Peers and our letter on the subject appeared in The Guardian.   

Parliamentary engagement

SNP Treasury Spokesperson Kirsty Blackman MP referred to AAT in the House of Commons, stating that she’d like us to give evidence on the Budget during a Public Bill Committee.
 
AAT directly engaged with over 20 MPs, mostly on Prompt Payment and the Budget/Finance Bill but also on specific issues such as Entrepreneurs Relief and Ethnicity Pay Reporting.

AAT urges reform of Prompt Payment Code

Building on the widespread support gained for our position on prompt payment in October, AAT continued to secure regional, local and trade media coverage on the issue in November. We also met with MPs to discuss our recommendations – including the Small Business Minister, Kelly Tolhurst MP, the BEIS team of officials responsible for the policy, representatives from the Cabinet Office and the Deputy Director General of the CBI.
 
AAT’s full response is available here

Ethnicity Pay Reporting

AAT believes that ethnicity pay reporting has numerous benefits for employers, employees and the wider economy and this is supported by a member survey on the subject. 
 
It is often said that public reporting “shines a light” on a problem. Unfortunately shining a light on a problem is usually insufficient to tackle it. Therefore, AAT has recommended that the new requirements include an obligation on companies to publish an action plan setting out how the issue will be addressed.
 
We have also suggested that companies with 50+ employees should be required to report on ethnicity pay. 99% of UK businesses employ less than 250 people, reducing the ethnicity pay gap at smaller companies is therefore likely to lead to more compelling outcomes than simply requiring change at companies employing more than 250.
 
In addition to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), members of the Women & Equalities Committee and members of the Business Select Committee received a copy of our Ethnicity Pay reporting consultation response, as did all politicians who had spoken on the subject over the past two years. AAT’s views received extensive coverage in the HR press as well as national media coverage in The Times. 
 
The full AAT Ethnicity Pay Reporting response can be read here.

Apprenticeships APPG

The recent All Party Parliamentary Group meeting on Apprenticeships last month provided an opportunity to highlight that AAT apprenticeship numbers had been steadily increasing against the backdrop of a national collapse. We were also able to acknowledge that some major accounting firms were substantially increasing their apprenticeship numbers whilst maintaining or reducing their graduate intake – a strong sign of the increasing recognition of the value apprentices can add to the workplace.

Conservative Party Regional Conference

AAT attended the Conservative Party regional conference in Canterbury where we were able to directly discuss our recommendations on Prompt Payment with the small business Minister, Kelly Tolhurst MP; our views on Entrepreneurs Relief with the Secretary of State for Business, Greg Clark MP and our Ethnicity Pay reporting recommendations with both James Cleverly MP (Deputy Chair, Conservative Party) and the Home Secretary Sajid Javid MP. 

AAT Consultations, Calls for Evidence & Inquiry responses

AAT responded to consultations on Ethnicity Pay Reporting, the Budget and the Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) review of the business life cycle (the bureaucratic and tax challenges faced when starting up, running and selling a business). 

These, and more, can be read in full here: AAT Public Policy responses

Other events, meetings and engagement

• Attendance at the annual CBI Conference saw speeches from the prime Minister and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn with a video message from an AAT apprentice, Damilare Olumandi, thrown in for good measure. 
• Discussions were held with The Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS) about future collaboration 
• A meeting with Newable (an organisation established to assist small businesses) to discuss potential future joint working enabled us to highlight the work of Informi.
• A ComRes event to launch their research into the issues young people face accessing HE & FE reinforced everything we have heard over the last twenty years about schools being useless at providing meaningful careers advice and being heavily biased towards encouraging students to pursue a University route to employment. At the same event, Robert Halfon MP highlighted that 70% of students undertake an apprenticeship in Switzerland – a significant contributory factor to the success of their economy.
• In response to questioning from AAT, James Kirkup, former Political Editor at The Telegraph and now Chief Executive of the SMF Think Tank, said that the accountancy sector was ahead of many others in successfully promoting apprenticeships and that recent conversations with the Independent Schools Association had revealed a new trend of increasing numbers of very high earning parents encouraging their children to consider an apprenticeship for some of the professions – accounting being the example given.
• Attending the quarterly SME group meeting of the CBI provided an opportunity to influence on issues ranging from Prompt Payment to Entrepreneurs Relief.
• An APPG on Responsible Tax saw heated debate around the issue of hypothecated tax with various representatives from the tax profession, including Paul Morton, Director of the Office of Tax Simplification, as well as MPs and Peers.