Finance chiefs are less downbeat – but they’re still not in the mood to spend

Confidence is up, on last year – but then again it couldn’t have got much lower

After a week of grim forecasts, Sunak gets a boost from finance directors (PA)

Perhaps it’s pushing it too far to suggest Britain’s finance chiefs are leaping about like the mad March hare in spring, but the latest Deloitte survey of their views is strikingly upbeat.

The CFO Survey looks at the responses of 64 finance directors, including 11 in the FTSE 100 and 24 in the second tier FTSE 250. In total, they account for more than 10 per cent of the London Stock Exchange by market value.

It found a net 25 per cent were more optimistic about the financial prospects of their businesses than three months ago. To put that into some context, the long-term average of the series is minus two but over the last year it has run well below that so the plus 25 represents the greatest improvement in sentiment since the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine.