On the HR front, the CIPD's reaction was to say that the Pre-Budget Report offered the labour market "a mixture of Santa and Scrooge" and urged the Chancellor to do more to help older workers in addition to his proposals to help younger workers. 

The jobs/training guarantee for all workers aged under 24 who have been employed for 6 months was welcomed by the Work Foundation, who described it as a "bold policy".

Both the CIPD and CBI oppose the increases to both employee and employer rates of national insurance from April 2011 - with the CPID commenting: "This tax on jobs will hit at a time when we are still likely to be in the early stages of a "jobs light" economic recovery - this is not the tonic a sickly labour market needs."

Finally, some tiny small print from p94 of the Pre-Budget Report for reward and benefits professionals.

There was speculation that the Chancellor would do away with certain tax breaks on employee benefits in the Budget known as salary sacrifice benefits, whereby employees can accept a lower salary in return for tax-free benefits or pension contributions (see HR magazine's predictions for instance).

The government has had its fingers burned recently in this area however, when a plan to remove tax breaks on childcare vouchers resulted in an eventual U-turn by the Prime Minister.

So instead of targetting other popular salary sacrifice benefits such as Cycle to Work schemes, the Chancellor has limited himself to scrapping the tax exemption for workplace canteens (when used as part of a flexible benefit or salary sacrifice arrangement) which will be ended from April 2011. But where all employees have access to a subsidised canteen (not just those taking this up as part of a flexible benefits scheme) this tax exemption will continue to apply. The cut will bring in a grand annual total of just £110 million from 2011.