15 October 2026, London – The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) is urging the Chancellor to use the Autumn Budget to reform taxation and help SMEs move from survival to growth. CIMA is calling on the government to lower employment costs, support skills and professional development, strengthen the foundations for regional growth and give businesses greater certainty so they can plan and invest with confidence.
In its submission to HM Treasury, CIMA proposes a package of measures designed to strengthen the foundations of long-term economic growth. The recommendations include reducing the tax burden on employment and businesses, removing barriers to SME investment, promoting strategically important skills, such as finance and accounting, that underpin the Industrial Strategy, providing greater certainty on tax, business policy and regulation.
CIMA says the Chancellor must balance the government’s immediate fiscal challenges with measures that enable businesses to invest, hire and plan for the long term. This is supported by findings from CIMA’s recent report, Building the Foundations of a Better Business Environment, which captured the views of over 500 SME business leaders from around the UK.
Its six priorities for government action are:
Make tax reform to support business a main priority;
Give regional growth the right structural underpinning;
Help SMEs move from survival and stability to growth;
Skills and professional education are economic infrastructure;
Create a productivity mission with regional outcomes; and
Provide long-term policy certainty and proportionate regulation.
Andrew Harding, FCMA, CGMA, Chief Executive of The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, said: “Businesses need an environment that supports investment, hiring and growth, not one that discourages it. Too many organisations are contending with rising costs, uncertainty and barriers to investment when they should be focused on improving productivity and expanding.
“The Chancellor has an opportunity to change that. Reducing barriers to investment, backing ambitious businesses and providing greater certainty on tax and regulation would send a clear signal that the government is serious about sustainable economic growth.”
To deliver these six priorities, CIMA recommends:
Make tax reform to support business a main priority
Reduce employer National Insurance contributions by lowering the rate and raising the secondary threshold.
If fiscal conditions prevent immediate reductions, the government should at least commit to no further increase in the rate or reduction in the threshold, giving employers greater certainty over future employment costs.
Introduce five-year roadmaps for tax, business regulation and wider policy, alongside stronger assessment of the cumulative impact of government policy changes on SMEs.
Address fiscal drag and tax cliff edges. Index thresholds regularly and smooth abrupt withdrawal points that discourage work, investment and growth.
Reform business rates. Remove barriers to investment in premises and equipment while easing pressure on high streets and regional businesses.
Give regional growth the right structural underpinning
Create a regional growth framework that combines clear national direction with local flexibility, placing SMEs and local employers at the centre of regional priority-setting.
Put SMEs and local employers at the centre of regional delivery, giving them a meaningful role alongside professional bodies and education to assess local growth policy.
Introduce a SME investment ISA that enables individuals to invest in diversified and regulated vehicles in qualifying UK SMEs and locally rooted growth businesses.
Make regional and SME impact assessment a formal part of Budget decisions, ensuring major tax, spending, regulatory and infrastructure measures are assessed for their impact on regions and businesses before implementation.
Develop a long-term solution to the VAT registration threshold and tackle tax cliff edges that can discourage businesses from expanding.
Maintain competitive investment incentives and introduce a Growth and Investment Test for revenue-raising measures to assess their likely impact on employment, investment, productivity and SME growth before implementation.
Help SMEs move from survival and stability to growth
Reinstate and modernise the Growth Accelerator Scheme as a targeted, co-funded programme that gives SMEs access to expert support to overcome barriers to investment, improve productivity and scale up.
Strengthen the Business Growth Service to create a clearer pathway for ambitious businesses seeking advice and support.
Skills and professional education are economic infrastructure
Maintain Growth and Skills Levy funding for learners up to age 25 undertaking Level 7 apprenticeships that demonstrably operate as genuine early-career pathways into strategically important professional and technical occupations such as finance and accounting.
Provide greater flexibility in how levy funding can be used and extend the Lifelong Learning Entitlement to recognised higher-level professional education.
Recognise professional skills and education as economic infrastructure that helps employers access the talent they need while improving productivity and career opportunities.
Create a productivity mission with regional outcomes
Establish a long-term productivity mission with clear national and regional outcomes, so that gains in productivity and economic growth are felt across the country.
Establish a permanent and independent UK Productivity Commission to examine national, regional, private-sector and public-sector productivity and advise on how productivity disparities between the nations, regions, cities and towns of the UK can be reduced.
Create employer-led Regional Productivity Hubs and Skills Clusters through Strategic Authorities and equivalent arrangements across the devolved nations. This would bring together employers, SMEs, professional bodies, colleges, universities, training providers and local government to identify skills shortages, productivity barriers and growth opportunities in a coordinated way.
Provide long-term policy certainty and proportionate regulation
Complement the tax roadmap with a rolling framework covering employment policy, skills funding, regulation, infrastructure, major business-support programmes and Industrial Strategy implementation.
Assess the combined effect of significant changes to taxation, minimum wages, employment regulation and administrative requirements rather than considering each measure in isolation.
Publish coordinated sector regulatory roadmaps across relevant departments and regulators, ensuring there is a joined-up forward plan for regulators that oversee the same sector. This approach recognises that businesses can accommodate change more effectively when its direction, timing and cumulative implications are clear.
Read CIMA’s full Autumn Budget 2026 submission here.
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