Blog

This report of the BSA Economic Tracker reflects the responses gathered during the first six editions of the Tracker from January to June 2024 (Q1 Q2). The report also complements and reflects changes since the Q1 Economic Tracker Report published earlier this year. Click here to read the report.

This briefing note provides a summary of Labour’s ‘Plan to Make Work Pay’. Click here to read the briefing.

The BSA’s summary of the Labour Party Manifesto 2024. Click here to read the summary.

The BSA’s summary of the key bills in the King’s Speech 2024. Click here to read the summary.

In late December 2023, the Business Services Association (BSA) was approached by colleagues from
the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) to discuss a new report on the business services sector.
The project would look at the sector’s size, characteristics, and priorities in relation to growth and
investment. This report therefore provides an overview of the key characteristics and contributions
of the business services sector to the UK economy. Click here to read the report.

This report summarises responses gathered through the first three editions of the BSA Economic Tracker survey from January to March 2024 (Q1). It also reflects changes in the economic landscape and experiences of BSA members since the 2023 report. Click here to read the report.

This report of the BSA Economic Tracker reflects responses to those versions of the survey published between January 2023 and December 2023. These were circulated to all BSA members to complete as the question set was reviewed and refreshed each month. Thank you to all those who completed the various editions of the Tracker survey in 2023. Click here to read the report.

The BSA has produced a document that explains who we are, what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Click here to read.

Gemma, Head of Operations, and Martha, Policy and Events Officer, at the BSA are really proud to have worked with BSA member NatWest on our series of BSA Women in Business Services events.

BSA members employ such a diverse breadth of talent, experience, and expertise, and we value how much of a priority inclusivity and gender equality is across our sector.

In September 2022, the BSA organised an event with Dame Melanie Dawes DCB, Chief Executive of Ofcom. She shared her experiences over her time in Ofcom and as a senior civil servant, and reflected on how the lessons she learned in the public sector could apply to business services.

This International Women’s Day, I’ve pledged to challenge the biases that affect all of us in the workplace — from my colleagues pursuing careers at ISS, to my daughter, who will be embarking on her own career path after she graduates from university this year. While much progress has been made since I started working, there’s still a long road ahead to achieving a truly gender-equal world. 

Diversity and inclusion are usually treated as enhancements, not as core to business success. But organisations need a real strategy to embed diversity and inclusion – not just a series of tactical measures that may or may not add up to a plan.

That’s why at Amey we have Freedom to Perform, a culture where initiatives are aimed at changing the whole workplace rather than being based on the hope that a few more women will be encouraged to fit into existing working practices.

As a woman, and a mother, in a leadership role, I’ve always found myself passionate about women in the workplace and the challenges and biases we face, particularly when it comes to the foodservice industry, in which men usually dominate the senior roles.

In 2021, we set targets to increase the number of women in our leadership team, middle and senior management, and the number of female chefs. We are pleased to be ahead of our target in each of these areas; one of the key activities helping us achieve these aims is our Womentoring programme, specifically aimed at helping female colleagues to fulfil their potential.

Guest Blog by Professor Gary Sturgess

The Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit has an honourable history, and the decision by the current Prime Minister to re-establish it is to be welcomed. As a business leader commented to me recently – good government is five percent policy, 10 percent implementation and 85 percent delivery.

In tracing the origins of the PMDU, we must go back to the ‘Next Steps’ report, published by the Efficiency Unit (as it was then called) in 1988. The formal title of this report – ‘Improving Management in Government’ – captured the organisation’s mission, and that one report, written by a small team over a period of several months, had a profound impact on the structure of government over the decades that followed. (And, by the way, ‘Next Steps’ claimed that 95 percent of the Civil Service was concerned with delivery.)

Ahead of World FM Day on Wednesday 12th May, members of the Business Services Association’s Cleaning Committee have prepared a series of their personal profiles aimed at promoting the cleaning sector and to celebrate working within Soft FM.

The profiles below are testament both to the rewards of working within the industry as well the variety of potential routes to working within Soft FM.

The BSA Cleaning Committee provides a forum to share industry best practice, including on skills and training, draws up messaging about the sector and represents the interests of cleaning service providers to stakeholders. Thank you to those committee members who have supplied their profiles below.