Steve O'Hare says there are plenty of reasons for the tendering sector to be positive as the UK economy tries to kick back into life with the easing of lockdown
One look at the amount of money that will be pumped into the economy when it kicks back into gear after lockdown is a huge reason to be positive for people, businesses and organisations.
These have been a debilitating two months for the economy and a horrific time for the health of our nation but things will need to bounce back.
Some of the measures the Government are introducing are proof that they are as keen as the rest of us for the economic curve to take an upwards slant.
Chancellor
It’s important that before the coronavirus began to take a proper hold, the new Chancellor’s first Budget announced significant Government spending on numerous infrastructure-based projects. While automation does play a part in the industry, infrastructure projects require people to complete them - and lots of them.
For example, there is a pot of £9.5bn for home construction projects and that is a serious amount of money! The Government needs to re-invigorate the labour market and there will be plenty of opportunities for up-skilling and re-skilling within the industry.
Talking of learning new skills, the National Skills funding is going to be a pot of £3bn and that will be put out to tender to help companies re-skill their workforce.
Within the training sector, there will be the opportunity to re-skill and develop people from existing roles and re-skill them to fit the new opportunities. Off the back of that, there will be a number of different programmes across the adult education sector.
Some of the diversification work that SCLO was doing earlier this year enabled us to work with Derby-based Tarby Construction to win local Government funding to maintain the highways and byways of Derby and fix a large number of potholes. The budget includes £500m nation-wide to do the same.
Bounce Back
I am not saying it will be easy for the economy to bounce back from the unprecedented strain it has been put under during the COVID-19 pandemic but there are better times ahead, that I can be sure of.
All the signs are good. The Government needs to add stimulus to the economy and, even if things get pushed back time wise, they will still need doing. So, we should all look to the future, be patient and take our opportunities when they come.