Triple dip here we come. That's the clear message from the latest health check on the services sector from CIPS and Markit. To say the report was a disappointment is an understatement. News that activity fell for the first time since December 2010, when Britain was shivering under a foot of snow, came as a real jolt after the slightly better news from manufacturing earlier in the week.

It is possible, although not likely, that the report was a blip caused by the wet weather. This was, after all, the fourth fall in the survey in a row and – December 2010 apart – was the weakest since April 2009, when the world economy hit rock bottom after the collapse of Lehman Brothers the previous September.

CIPS/Markit say that the reason the services purchasing managers' index dipped below the 50 level that separates expansion from contraction was an unwillingness of firms to invest at a time when their customers were not spending.

This is entirely consistent with the UK's flat-lining performance over the last couple of years. Businesses see no point in buying new plant and machinery until there are signs that consumers are willing to spend more. But household budgets are being stretched by the squeeze on wages and the rising costs of essentials such as food and fuel.

Services account for 75% of the economy, so the survey does not bode well for the fourth quarter growth figures due out at the end of the month. In recent days there had been growing optimism that Britain might avoid another quarter of falling national output: the Bank of England reported that banks planned to extend more credit, the economic data from the US, Europe and Asia suggested that the soft patch in the global economy was coming to an end. Some policymakers at the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, are pressing for an early end to quantitative easing, the programme of money creation used as a means to boost demand for the past four years.

It is safe to say that an end to QE in the UK remains a long way off. The 0.9% jump in gross domestic product in the third quarter of 2012 now looks even more like a statistical aberration caused by bank holidays and the Olympics, and a decline in output in the fourth quarter now looks highly probable.

The Bank of England's monetary policy committee meets next week and will probably adopt a wait and see approach even after the downbeat news from the services sector. Threadneedle Street remains hopeful that the stimulus already provided, coupled with its Funding for Lending Scheme, will be enough to conjure up a slow recovery during 2013. It will be encouraged that mortgage approvals rose to their highest level in 10 months during November and will want to see what happened to consumer spending over the Christmas and new year period before deciding whether to sanction any further stimulus.

But make no mistake. Even after unprecedented policy measures, this is an economy that is going nowhere fast. The story of the year ahead will be weak growth, failure to meet government borrowing targets, credit downgrades and pressure on both the Bank and the Treasury to end what is comfortably the slowest and weakest recovery of the modern age.