Sir Digby Jones speaks at his first official engagement since leaving the CBI at Gresham's Business & Support Services sector dinner

Speaking on his first official engagement since leaving the CBI on Friday 30th June, Sir Digby Jones shared his opinions on the UK government and business community at the Gresham Business & Support Services sector dinner at the Hotel du Vin, Birmingham on Monday 3rd July.

Sir Digby was on ebullient form sharing his experiences whilst at the CBI, amongst other topics including:

The importance of support services businesses in improving the efficiency of the public sector.
Transport policy and how he had been instrumental in starting a dialogue with John Prescott.
Private v public owned schools and prisons - private schools showing better truancy rates and private prisons fewer re-offenders.
Government policy on education as a whole and how innumerate the average 18 year old is.
Trade Unions and their negative effect on UK industry - they should be pushing for more training etc. rather than working shorter hours etc.
How Gordon Brown has had a negative effect on UK business with his stealth taxes - increases in NI both for profit making companies and struggling ones.
The importance of public sector reform.

The high profile dinner was attended by CEO’s of current Gresham business and support services portfolio companies, prospective chairman from the sector and Deloitte’s Corporate Finance team.

Gresham has a high track record of success in this sector - 22 investments over the last nine years with a money multiple of just under 4 times and creating 56 management team millionaires. The most recent investment was the oil and gas recruitment specialist Swift Technical Group in June 2006.