Big on Small Business

We have recently launched our small business survey.  We really believe in promoting small business.  We want to ensure that small business can not only survive, but also to thrive and grow.  We have many ideas as to how we can help small business…and we understand why small business is important.  But at the end of the day, we need small business to provide input so we can make sure we do have policies that are practical and of real benefit.  We want real input, to hear the issues business face and how they have (or could) be overcome.  

The survey covers a number of areas, including regulations, business support, business growth, environment and public authority tendering.  These are all areas that deserve future blogs but I am going to touch upon business support.

There are currently over 3,000 business support schemes in England.  The Government have now agreed that there are too many schemes.  It’s overwhelming.  How can business find the best support scheme for them - and how long will it take to find that scheme!  Another issue is that business has to know these schemes exist!  The help does not necessarily go to the business that most needs it the most, rather the business that happens to know about it.  It is all too random.

Rather than pump money into schemes that small business do not use or find confusing, we need to cut right back on these schemes and make better use of the money available.  In reality, many businesses use professionals for advice, rather than the Government schemes.

As you can see, your views on such schemes for example would be very useful for us, in our discussions with interested stakeholders such as the Federation of Small Business, and in our pushing for a better deal for small business.

Welcome to the first blog of the “Big on Small Business” website. There are so many things that could be talked about and so many things that should be talked about. I thought I would use this first blog to set out our stall as to what we are all about.

The Liberal Democrats want small business to be successful. Of course, I think most parties would agree with this statement. The differences arise not in the overall objective…but how we get there. We believe we have the policies to give small business the best chance of success.

We are a party who wants to reduce the regulatory burden on small business. We want business to tell us what regulations need to be simplified or scrapped. There are regulations which are necessary but sometimes regulations are overly complex, time consuming or just not needed. No smoking signs in the workplace is a classic example. Read the rest of this entry »