Treasury cuts hit profits at Tribal

Tribal group, a provider of public-sector services, yesterday blamed its slump in profits on the Coalition Government's "significant clampdown" on spending on advisory services in the first half of this year.

Tribal, which confirmed last week it had received preliminary takeover approaches from unnamed parties, said it had managed to increase revenues from its healthcare and education businesses, including its Ofsted inspection unit. However, this was not enough to prevent a 40.3 per cent slump in adjusted pre-tax profits, which dropped to £4.6m for the six months to 30 June as revenues fell by 4.8 per cent to £95m. Peter Martin, the chief executive, said: "What we saw [after] the election was a significant clampdown, particularly by central government departments on consultancy spend, at least in the short term."

Tribal predicted its full-year profits would be "moderately below previous expectations". Its shares fell by 3p to 81p.