LONDON, May 27 (Reuters) - The pace of decline in Britain's services sector looks set to slow over the next three months helped by falling costs, a survey by the Confederation of British Industry showed on Wednesday.
The CBI survey showed that while the sector remained in deep recession, firms expected both values and volumes of business to decline at the s lowest pace since last summer.
The pace of job-shedding was also expected to slow from its recent record rates.
The balance of companies reporting rises in total costs per person was the lowest in the survey's history, reflecting pay restraint and a lack of upward price pressure with regard to input costs.
The survey divided services firms into two groups: Business and Professional Services, such as accountancy, legal and marketing firms, and Consumer Services, including hotels, restaurants, travel and leisure.
In the Consumer Services sub-sector, a net balance of +15 firms said they were more optimistic than three months ago, the first positive balance since February 2007.
In Business and Professional Services, sentiment continued to decline for a balance of -6 percent, but this is the slowest rate of decline since confidence started to slide in February 2008.
"We have seen further falls in business activity over the past three months, but this survey suggests that the sharpest falls may now be over," said Ian McCafferty, CBI chief economic adviser.
"Business is not expected to decline at the same rate going forward as it has in the past six months."
The quarterly survey was conducted in the first two weeks of May and covered 179 service-sector firms. (Reporting by Christina Fincher; editing by Stephen Nisbet)