The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has welcomed the budget, saying “no news is good news” for HR.

Commenting on the Chancellor’s budget announcement, the CIPD said that employers would welcome the “breathing space” and the additional resources for skills.

Gerwyn Davies, CIPD public policy adviser, said: “While we endorse the additional resources allocated to welfare reform and skills that build on existing initiatives, the CIPD welcomes the breathing space that the [budget] announcement offers to our members, who have had to contend with streams of employment legislation and initiatives in recent years – albeit many of them well received and positive for the workplace.

“With recent CIPD research showing a record number of our members planning to carry out redundancies in the next three months, however, all efforts now need to be directed towards optimising organisational performance and minimising redundancies so that organisations are well placed to capitalise on any recovery in economic performance.”