Formerly Senior Partner at Eversheds LLP, Leeds and Manchester, he has a long-standing connection with the IoD, having previously served as Regional Chairman for Yorkshire and the Humber. He has been a member of the IoD’s Board since April 2008 and will take over from Philippa Foster-Back who leaves the IoD following three terms of office.

Ian Dormer, Chairman of the IoD, welcomed the appointment, saying:

“We are delighted that Nimble has accepted the role as Deputy Chairman, he brings a significant wealth and breadth of experience both within the business world and within the IoD. I look forward to working more closely with him and do not doubt that he will meet the high bar set by Philippa, whose input and wise counsel have been hugely valued by the Board.”

Nimble Thompson added:

“I look forward to assisting Ian and the Board to ensure the IoD continues to deliver for its members and the wider business community. I will do my best to follow the great contribution made by Philippa.”

Nimble Thompson’s biography

Mr Thompson was Deputy Chairman of Eversheds and Senior Partner, Leeds and Manchester, before retiring from practice in 1999. Since then he has been a director of a number of companies spanning a variety of sizes and sectors. This summer, he steps down as Chairman of NG Bailey, the county’s largest privately owned M&E contractor, after 12 years as Chairman.

He is a non-executive director at several organisations – Henderson Insurance Brokers, Rushbond, Judicium and Skipton Building Society – and chairs his small family firm in County Durham. He was Chairman of Leeds Metropolitan University for six years, and chaired ‘Eureka! The National Children’s Museum’ from 2003 to 2007. He is a currently a Governor of Giggleswick School. Before joining the Board of the IoD, Mr Thompson was Regional Chairman of Yorkshire and the Humber. He holds an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Leeds Metropolitan University.

“The labour market figures don’t really tell us a lot. The fall in unemployment on both the claimant count and ILO measures is very small, as is the gain in employment from private sector jobs growth exceeding the decline in the public sector. We remain cautiously optimistic about the economic outlook in 2013 and still believe GDP growth could be around 1.5% this year.

“Perhaps the clearest sign comes from the continued pressure on household incomes, with inflation running well ahead of earnings growth, which is just 1.3% (excluding bonuses). The real income squeeze remains a dragging anchor on GDP growth.”

“The UK faces a global competitiveness challenge. To meet that challenge, our education system must deliver higher standards, ensuring more children leave school well-equipped for life and the workplace. Our exams must meet the excellence bar set by our highest-performing international competitors, and businesses will welcome reforms that inject greater rigour, help children and boost growth.

“The Government has demonstrated a strong commitment to raising levels of educational achievement. Whilst reforming GCSEs is clearly just one part of this effort, there is evidence to suggest that grade inflation has weakened the demand of the exams over time and that business confidence in the qualification has been eroded. It was important for the Government to act to address this – it is unacceptable and economically unsustainable for the exam system not to command the confidence of all those who rely on it.

“The Government must now ensure that the changes it makes – both to subject content and to assessment – are properly communicated to employers, particularly if GCSEs are to have a different grading system to A levels. Ofqual recommends a numbered grading system for GCSEs, from 1 to 8. This will help to give more granular information about students’ performance, and greater differentiation at the higher end of the grade range. However, introducing a numbered grading system for GCSEs alongside the existing letter-based A-level grading system could easily lead to employer confusion and it is important that this risk is addressed.”

“There are many areas of scientific research where the EU has been too slow to adapt. Governments have to be sensitive to concerns over safety, but we would like to see more leadership from politicians when it comes to promoting new technologies. The use of genetically modified crops can both increase yields and make agriculture more sustainable, while advances in areas such as biotechnology and space exploration will boost the economy and our quality of life. Where the science is robust, Europe must allow its member states to embrace the benefits of research and innovation.”

“We commend Ed Balls for opening up the debate on this vital subject. Spending on pensioners makes up a sixth of all public expenditure and the problem will only grow as our population ages. Politicians of all parties need to consider bold and wide-ranging reform, including to the principle of universal benefits. The welfare system must focus on those most in need, and means-testing should be considered where possible.

“We urge the Shadow Chancellor to go further and challenge the Government’s commitment to increase pension spending through the ‘triple-lock’. Repealing the ‘triple-lock’ would be a first step towards controlling the pension bill.

“The longer we delay reform, the more it will cost us, so the debate must begin now. For too long politicians have taken the view that if they rob Peter to pay Paul, they can at least count on Paul’s vote. If “we’re all in this together” no section of the community should be immune from examination. Savings gained should be used to shrink the size of the state and reduce the burden of taxation.”

“We welcome Labour’s new focus on controlling costs in the welfare system, although the money spent on individual benefits needs to be targeted as well as a general cap. More worrying was Ed Miliband’s decision to characterise business as part of the problem. The private sector generates tax revenue to pay for public spending and employs over 24 million people, nearly five times as many as the public sector.

“Ed Miliband’s specific criticisms of business are flawed. His comments on the minimum wage grossly exaggerate the scale of the problem. Only eight employers have been convinced of offenses under the National Minimum Wage Act, and the number who have been forced to pay money owed to staff is tiny (72 in 2011-12). It is illegal for job agencies to discriminate in favour of foreign workers, and they should be prosecuted in the limited number of cases where this happens. He may dislike zero-hours contracts, but they are a flexible form of employment which some businesses have been forced to adopt because of the inflexibility of the UK labour market.

“Instead of castigating businesses, the Labour Party should be looking to simplify and reduce our burdensome tax and regulatory systems, which are holding the private sector back from expanding and taking on more staff.”

Read the report here.

Key findings

1,327 members of the IoD responded to the survey between 16 and 26 January 2013:

98% said they were aware of the requirement to automatically enrol nearly all staff onto a pension scheme to which the employer had to contribute. This is a large rise compared to the last time we asked the question in 2011, when 20% said they were not aware of the legislation.
Auto-enrolment is being introduced in stages, affecting the smallest employers by 2017. Three-fifths (62%) of businesses said they were confident that they were prepared to enrol their staff when they hit their staging date, compared to 15% who were unconfident. Preparedness varied by size of business: 79% of directors of large companies (250+ employees) said they were confident, while only 54% of those from small firms (0-49 employees) said the same.
In 2011, 36% of businesses thought that more than a third of their staff would choose not to enrol in the workplace pension scheme; by 2013, only 15% of business still thought so. There remains significant uncertainty for small firms, however, with over a third (36%) saying they did not know how many of their staff would choose to opt-out.
Auto-enrolment imposes a new charge on employers through the pension contributions, which will affect their profitability. Two-fifths (42%) of businesses said that they would have to meet the contributions out of their profits. A fifth (21%) said they would have to freeze or cut salaries to find the money, and 3% reported that they would be forced to make redundancies.

Malcolm Small, Senior Pensions Policy Adviser at the IoD, said:

“Auto-enrolment is a new challenge for business, both in terms of costs and logistics. It’s positive that nearly all businesses know that they will have to set up a pension scheme for staff over the next few years, and that most feel ready for it. However, we still don’t know how small firms are going to handle the burden – nearly half still feel unsure about the process, and many don’t know if their staff are going to drop out.”

Graeme Leach, IoD”s chief economist

Commenting on the IMF’s latest Article IV consultation on the UK economy, Graeme Leach, Chief Economist at the IoD said:

“There weren’t any surprises from the IMF, but we do have concerns with some of what they said. Firstly, when the IMF focuses on the need to fix bank balance sheets, they need to be careful. Large issuance of capital could undermine growth in the money supply and make quantitative easing more difficult. Yes, bank balance sheets need to be repaired, but not at the expense of an impaired recovery.

“Secondly, when the IMF says that planned fiscal tightening will be a drag on growth, the discretionary measures amount to only £10 billion, which is pretty small. It would make more sense to argue to maintain the overall level of public spending, whilst shifting a greater proportion towards infrastructure, where the fiscal multipliers are stronger. In other words spend the existing money better, rather than spend even more.

“Finally, when the IMF talks about potential structural or supply-side reforms, the list is fairly short. The UK economy needs a seismic shift in the burden of red tape, employment law and planning rules, together with far more competition in both the public and private sectors. The IMF, like the Government, has a poverty of ambition here.”

Corin Taylor, Senior Economic Adviser at the IoD and author of the report, said:

“Shale gas could be a new North Sea for Britain, creating tens of thousands of jobs, supporting our manufacturers and reducing gas imports. Further exploration will be needed to assess the size of technically and commercially recoverable resources. At the same time, partnerships need to be established between industry, government and communities to ensure that development of this vital national resource benefits local people.”

Read the full document here, an eight-page summary of the report here, and watch a video of Corin Taylor explaining the findings.

The key findings of the report, which will be launched in Lancashire on Wednesday, include:

Economic benefits

· The IoD’s previous report, published last year, looked at the number of jobs that shale gas production could potentially create. We now believe that it could be higher still. According to the detailed scenarios presented in this report of a potential production phase, investment could peak at £3.7 billion a year, supporting 74,000 jobs – not just for geologists and drilling specialists, but for construction workers, truck drivers, cement manufacturers, water treatment experts, and people working in local retail and service industries.

· Jobs could be created in parts of the country that need them most – over the last decade, the proportion of working-age people receiving at least one out-of-work benefit has averaged more than 15% in the North West, compared to less than 9% in the South East.

· Just as importantly, shale gas could support jobs in the chemical industry and wider manufacturing, helping Britain to make more. In the US, shale gas could lead to 1 million new manufacturing jobs being created over the next decade.

· Shale gas production, with tax rates of up to 62%, could generate significant tax revenue, helping to offset a predicted future tax gap of 1.25% of GDP from lower Fuel Duty and North Sea receipts.

· Far from a “dash for gas”, the Department for Energy and Climate Change expects overall gas demand, for heating and industry as well as electricity, to remain roughly flat over the next two decades. This is consistent with carbon reduction of 45% by 2025. But 76% of the UK’s gas is likely to be imported by 2030, costing £15.6 billion. In our central scenario, shale gas production could reduce gas imports to 37% in 2030, and the cost of imports could fall to £7.5 billion.

Environmental benefits

· According to the Committee on Climate Change, if production is well regulated, shale gas can have lower emissions than imported gas. If shale gas supports the production of chemicals and other goods in the UK, global emissions will also be lower, as UK industry is very energy-efficient.

· Natural gas has great potential as a transport fuel, particularly for lorries and buses. In the US, 19% of municipal buses run on natural gas.

Surface footprint

· Only a small amount of land is needed for shale gas development. One 2-hectare site could potentially support 40 horizontal wells and supply enough gas to power 747,000 homes at peak production. 100 such sites would take up just two square kilometres of land, and could supply around one third of our gas needs at peak.

· Water use could peak at just 0.05% of the UK’s total consumption of 11,000 million cubic metres a year.

Barriers and recommendations

Shale gas development will have two stages. Exploration must continue to assess the size of technically and commercially recoverable resources. If this is successful, then government and industry must collaborate to enable production to go ahead.

Barrier: The planning and permitting regime involves four agencies, and two public consultations are needed to drill and fracture one exploration well.

Recommendation: Clear guidance should be provided for planning and permitting. The national agencies – DECC, the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive – should sign off on the sub-surface drilling and fracturing processes, and the local Minerals Planning Authority should concentrate on the surface impacts, including truck movements. For a production phase, planning permission should be given for all potential activities on a site, rather than covering each well – otherwise it would be like needing a separate planning application for each turbine in a wind farm. A National Policy Statement should be drawn up, making clear that shale gas developments are part of the UK’s nationally significant energy infrastructure.

Barrier: Local authorities and communities need to benefit financially from hosting nationally important shale gas production sites.

Recommendation: Local authorities should receive a share of the gains from shale gas development in their area. Allowing them to keep 100% of the business rates for shale gas sites is a good option. Community benefit schemes must be flexible and spent on locally-determined priorities.

Barrier: The industry itself needs to develop a “social licence to operate”. Although 50% of residents of Blackpool, Fylde and West Lancashire support exploration in their region, more needs to be done to gain the confidence of local communities.

Recommendation: Each site needs to be accompanied by full disclosure of the chemicals used in the fracturing fluid, as set out in the guidelines issued by the UK Onshore Operators Group. Residents should also be told how many trucks will be visiting the site, how much water will be used and what will be done with it afterwards.

Barrier: Skills shortages are a problem for offshore oil and gas production, and skilled people will be needed for onshore shale gas production.

Recommendation: Partnerships to improve skills and support the supply chain should be developed. A skills action plan should be drawn up and “Project Pathfinder”, which provides real-time data on upcoming projects for the offshore supply chain, should be replicated.

Barrier: It currently takes 3 ½ years to obtain a grid connection, which is far too long.

Recommendation: Government leadership needs to be strengthened. The Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil should propose measures to reduce the time it takes to obtain a grid connection.

Dan Byles MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Unconventional Oil & Gas, member of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, and author of the report’s foreword, said:

“Shale gas is about more than simply gas. It is about wider British industry, providing secure energy and raw materials for manufacturers. The North Sea is rightly regarded as a model for effective offshore oil and gas regulation. If we get this right, in future I believe the world could look to the UK as the gold standard for a well regulated and safe shale gas industry that benefits local communities and the nation.”

Dan Lewis, Chief Executive of Future Energy Strategies, Energy Policy Adviser to the IoD and author of Chapter 2 of the report, said:

“Within living memory, Aberdeen became the energy capital of Europe and the second richest part of the UK. With excellent infrastructure, a long history of innovation and key strengths in advanced engineering and manufacturing, Lancashire is well placed to take advantage of the benefits that shale gas could bring.”

Graeme Leach, IoD”s chief economist

Commenting on this morning’s labour market statistics, which showed that unemployment was up 0.1 per cent for January to March 2013 (compared to October to December 2012), Graeme Leach, Chief Economist at the Institute of Directors, said:

“All good things come to an end. After a good run of economic news the latest unemployment and employment statistics show the UK recovery is fragile. We remain confident the economy can still achieve 1 per cent plus growth this year, but the falls in employment and average earnings are a reminder the head winds remain strong”.