As always when the Chancellor stands up to make a formal statement in the House of Commons, today’s Spending Review announcement presents an opportunity for accountants to connect with clients and with prospects.
It’s not the full-blown Budget we had all expected to arrive at around this time – that was formally cancelled some time ago. Still, this government has a habit of surprising us by changing course at the last moment so here at PracticeWeb, the content team was prepared to mobilise and produce one of our famous Budget reports.
In the end, though, today’s speech was a low-key affair focused, as promised, on Whitehall spending plans and the delivery of economic forecasts.
If you’re a PracticeWeb professional content client, you’ll shortly be receiving:
- a professionally designed two-page special bulletin with your logo and contact details applied
- a text version of the bulletin to adapt for social media, email and your firm’s blog.
Video explainer
We’ve also produced a short summary video that you’re welcome to download or embed.
It’s designed to work with most firm’s branding and has a discreet PracticeWeb credit on the final slide. If you’d like a version with your firm’s colours, logo and contact details, for a small fee, get in touch.
If you’re going to use it on LinkedIn, here’s a tip: download it, then upload it as a native video, rather than using our Vimeo embed. Evidence suggests this is more likely to help it show up in people’s content feeds.
Spending Review vs. Budget
A Spending Review isn’t a Budget. It’s about the allocation of funds to government departments and public projects. For example, he set out plans to freeze public sector pay rises and cut international aid while investing in infrastructure and the NHS.
Let’s be honest, though – that’s probably of less interest to the clients of accountancy firms than the juicy details of threshold changes and new tax reliefs you typically get with a Budget or Spring/Autumn Statement.
That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to talk about, however.
For example, the Chancellor announced an increase in the national living wage, while hidden away in supporting documentation was notice of a freeze on the business rates multiplier for 2021-22.
You’ll want to higlight these details to your clients and provide additional opinion and commentary, if possible.
Economic forecasts – an opportunity to talk tax
The other key component of today’s announcement was the presentation of revised economic forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility.
As you might expect, it was pretty grim stuff. This year, the Government has spent a lot, borrowed a lot, and seen the economy shrink as COVID-19 restrictions prevent normal trading across many industries.
The key talking point for you and your clients will be what this tells us about tax rises in the pipeline. If the Chancellor needs to stimulate the economy and raise funds to cover the costs of COVID, how might he do it?
Increases to capital gains tax, bringing it in line with income tax rates, are already under discussion. If you’ve got clients who might be hit by this, here’s an opportunity to focus their attention on tax planning.
Getting the most out of content
Our bulletin is a great piece of collateral in its own right with the potential to prompt all sorts of conversation – or, indeed, to head them off if you’re feeling the pressure of furlough scheme admin and self-assessment season.
When it really comes into its own is when you really squeeze the juice out of it:
- Share the PDF with clients via mass mailout.
- Take key points from the text and turn them into posts for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
- Use quotes from the report to make graphics using Canva or similar.
- Treat it like a script for your next social media video.
- Write a blog post around the PDF offering your own take on the news.
Or if you really want to make a splash with minimal investment of time and energy contact us about commissioning bespoke content for your firm’s blog. We write unique material for a select group of clients each month and it’s a key part of what enables them to achieve startling results in terms of search ranking and lead generation.