West Midlands businesses stand to benefit from the public sector cutbacks as outsourcing once again becomes increasingly common, according to one of the region's leading advisors to small and medium size businesses.

"There is doom and gloom but the positive outcome of the four-year £81 billion package of spending cuts will mean that services that are not currently outsourced will, in future, have to be outsourced," said Henry Briggs, Senior Partner at the Birmingham office of Haines Watts.

"The positive outcome will be that work that was previously handled in house within the public sector, or alternatively that was contracted to publicly funded bodies, will be open to businesses to pick up. Although there will be wide spread job losses in the public sector, this shouldn't deter business owners from growing their existing companies or setting up new operations to deal with this new work."

However, Mr Briggs said that gaining government work was difficult.

"Smaller companies often struggle to win public sector work. They need to consider the opportunities, costs and benefits and to implement a formal tendering system. Although the process is often tough, once a company has won its first public sector contract, the next one will be easier. 

"One public sector contract will reinforce the potential for gaining a further contract - as well as help build credibility and win new work from larger, private sector clients," said Mr Briggs.

"The government is intent on reducing the size of the public sector. It still has to deliver services and that means there will be more and not less opportunities during the course of the next four years," he said.

Haines Watts is one of the leading advisors to small and medium sized businesses and has offices throughout the UK.

For more information on Haines Watts, please visit their website here: www.hwca.com