by business editor Trevor Sturgess

A council leader has called for more government incentives to help businesses create jobs.

Paul Carter, leader of Kent County Council, regretted there had not been more "inducements" in this week's Comprehensive Spending Review.

KCC has confirmed that 1,500 council jobs will go, probably over the next two years, and the government is looking to the private sector to compensate for the huge number of jobs - estimated at 490,000 - being lost in the public sector.

While Mr Carter, a businessman himself, generally welcomed the Government's spending plans, he thought more should have been done to encourage firms to take on more people.

"I would like to have seen more incentives and inducements to the private sector to help them fill the significant void of less public sector jobs in the country and in Kent," Mr Carter said.

He recalled the Business Expansion Scheme in the 1980s which had given firms a "lifeline out of recession" and called for something similar today

Much would hinge on the willingness of banks to lend, but he was not hopeful that they could be persuaded to "come away from the totally risk-averse culture which is a knee-jerk reaction to the pickle they have got us all in."

It was a tough world out there and banks were not helping.