English: Keep Calm and Carry On UK government poster (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Open this link and see why the UK slipped once place in the global competiveness stakes per the WEF. The report card gives the UK lots of credit but it’s dragged down by the macro-economic risks, especially debt.
This excellent graphical chart, highlighting strengths and weaknesses AND pinpoints the risks. With high debt levels in both the public and private sector, the UK is playing a high risk game (see article on London property collapse forcasted by UBS).
The UK is an increasingly divided society between rich and poor, north and south, services and other industries. David Cameron and George Osborne still seem light on strategy and effectively dealing with the UK’s weaknesses. The bacon-slicer austerity cuts are not enough, the UK needs effective policy.
How should the UK most effectively strengthen her global competitiveness ranking?
Thoughts?
Dr Alf's Blog 
As Dr Alf knows from years of experience and expertise as a Financial Director, chartered accountant and interim transformation strategist, the UK ‘s competitiveness lags because we have the wrong people in charge of businesses, we make and sell too little of what people in other countries want, and have a public sector which is bloated and unaffordable. Too much of it remains in an uncompetitive state, with non-core functions and processes which should have been outsourced, offshored or automated long ago, still here operating unproductively with dinosaur-like trades unions along with their Neandertal working practices very much in evidence. Add to that, worker productivity which is 20th in the world, too much overseas aid, poor procurement and corruption you have a recipe for uncompetitiveness. Throw in no Mittelstand, poor language skills, insufficient support for small business, poor motivation caused by poor diet and poor attitudes, risk averse bank managers and VC’s, local authorities whose parking and planning permission policies destroy or strangle fledgeling businesses, you have a recipe for disaster.
Our UK state education system is on any measure not fit for purpose, with teachers turning out 1 child in 5 who can neither read, write, communicate nor interact properly with other people and who are not job ready in any sense.
Beyond that, you have too big a gap in earnings between those on average incomes and those at the top. This needs to be reduced to a maximum of 100 times average pay including all emoluments combined with a broad definition of what an “emolument ” is plus additional safeguards to prevent executives being paid below thresh-hold amounts several times over from different parts of the same company to circumvent the cap.
According to strategy cobsultants, McKinsey’s, there is a payoff for companies which embrace more diverse boards including the woman and ethnic minorities who are well travelled.
The UK has rather too many men of a certain age who went to Oxford or Cambridge, possess “tough poise” are “jolly good chaps”, wear Gieves and Hawkes suits, Loake and Lobb shoes, Wolsey socks, Turnbull and Asser shirts, and then join certain clubs and societies through which they secure their positions as a “God-given right”.
Until this changes the UK will progressively become less competitive and the Chinese and others will “eat our lunch”.