The recent emergency budget announced by the UK’s new coalition government has been given a good dissecting on the facebook discussion board of the Design Council, with particular focus on the public sector, predictable given the heavy cuts this area faces.

With the axe poised to fall across key services, it’s a definite concern that there’ll be a collective tightening of belts in terms design and marketing spend. This blog from the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones warns that the government is now looking to shut down “up to 75% of government websites” in a bid to save costs. However I think that the public sector should be looking to turn this into an opportunity to invite in new ideas, rather than just cut services in such a knee-jerk manner.

The drop in Corporation tax will be of help to small businesses, like us here at Soak, who seem to be the big winners of the budget. Hopefully this will drive a more open and competitive design market with companies (and the afore mentioned public sector bosses) looking for alternatives to the big London-based agencies to meet their needs.

According to a report by the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport),

“The UK has the largest creative sector in the EU, and relative to
GDP probably the largest in the world.“

Coupled with the previous government’s pledges to create ‘Digital Britain’, a commitment which will hopefully be honoured by the new administration, means that there is plenty to be positive about, even if we as consumers can expect some tough times ahead.

The discussion that inspired this article can be found in full on here or the Design Council have rather handily posted a summary on their site here.

Tags: Budget Report, Industry, Public Sector