A late night with George Osborne

Some people sit back and neck decent bottle of plonk. Others watch Waterloo Road (poor souls). I launched into a 130-page document called the The Plan for Growth, produced by those nice people at HM Treasury and the Department for Business, Skills & Innovation.
More fool, me some will say. But since the alternative was the 2011 Budget Red Book, I don’t think I’ve done too badly as far as sticking matchsticks in my eyes goes.
Anyway, enough of the ritual self-pity. The Plan For Growth is one half of yesterday’s Budget, and it offers at least some of the detail which George Osborne’s headline-grabbing Budget Statement didn’t. There are some big, important measures in it, some eye-catching detail, plenty of ifs, buts and maybes. A lot of it matters to anyone who’s in business. I’ll blog separately about Enterprise Zones. So here goes, in no particular order, the rest of it:
PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT: Some public sector land is going to be auctioned off. The Homes & Communities Agency will announce the first tranche shortly, and it’s considering a ‘Build Now, Pay Later’ model in some cases.
WORKERS’ RIGHTS: A plan to extend the Right to Request Time Off for Training to firms with fewer than 250 staff is being scrapped
The Right to Request Flexible Working for parents with children under 17 is being scrapped
PUBLIC SECTOR CONTRACTS: Pre Qualification Questionnaires for firms who want to tender for public sector contracts are being scrapped for work worth less than £100,000.
The Government wants 25% of public sector contracts to go to SMEs (firms with a sub-£25m turnover).
Government also wants to cut the cost of public sector construction and infrastructure by 20% partly through standardised design and new procurement models.
BUSINESS GROWTH INVESTMENT: A Business Angel Co-Investment Fund is going to be set up, probably based around the existing Regional Growth Fund structure, pitched at backing early-stage SMEs with high growth potential. A Business Coaching for Growth service is also going out to tender, offering investment readiness training. One for those GINEM types?
INWARD INVESTMENT: UK Trade & Investment, the government’s international trade agency, will become ‘more entrepreneurial’ by using private sector expertise
There will be a ‘bespoke service’ for key inward investors giving them direct access to ministers and ‘speedy resolution of bureaucratic obstacles to investment’. New help will be given to help small firms trade internationally.
LIFE SCIENCES/SOCIAL CARE: A new Health Research Regulatory Agency will look at streamlining the regulations and cost-effectiveness of clinical trials. It will also strip out regulations ‘never meant for the social care market’ which prevent market entry and flexible services.
CONSTRUCTION: A two-year rolling programme of funding-approved public sector projects will be published to help the construction industry
TOURISM: A £100m campaign, co-funded by the industry, aims to attract 4m more visitors to the UK after 2012. Tourist boards will become smaller, industry-led partnerships with government.
There will be more, and when the Chancellor said his Budget as ‘fiscally neutral’ he was telling you from the start that he’ll take back anything he’s giving away. That's one for the Red Book.