Small businesses pile pressure over Olympics deals

A small business lobby has criticised the government’s 'contradictory' policies on small businesses bidding for contracts with public sector organisations.

The facts: 

The Forum of Private Business (FPB) says it’s happy with efforts to make sure 30 per cent of government tenders are won by small businesses. Even better, they say, is the fact that so far 70 per cent of London Olympics contracts have gone the same way.

But in a statement released today the group added that some ministers were formulating policy that would undo the good work. It singled out a proposed requirement for small businesses to promote trade union membership to its employees as a precondition of bidding.

Under other proposals small businesses would have to provide audits of staff race and gender make-up and other details to goverment buyers.

They said:

FPB policy representative Matt Goodman said: "The government said that it wants to encourage small firms to take up…public contracts, but then in the next breath it announced controversial proposals which would force companies into promoting trade union membership as a pre-condition of bidding.

"What is really needed is an improved framework and better support for small firms that do tender for public contracts. Currently, there are so many reasons small firms are discouraged from tendering."

We say:

It’s great news that government departments and the Olympic Delivery Authority have listened to small businesses and see us as a strong ally in the bid to deliver the Games on time. But forcing firms to promote trade unions as a precondition of getting involved is incongruous and unhelpful.

We already have regulations governing who small businesses are allowed to hire and fire, and our stance on trade unions. Why go beyond this? Surely the real goal is to get the best business for the job; these measures won’t help reaching that objective.

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By News Desk  on   Aug 13,2008

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Keywords

Olympic Games    FPB    Olympics    government    tenders    contracts    bidding   

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