Small firms raise red tape alarm

Dozens of new rules affecting small business owners will force them to spend even more hours wading through paperwork, a small business lobby warns.

The facts:

Under the ‘Common Commencement’ ruling new legislation goes live in two blocks during the year - in Autumn and Spring. While small businesses support the coordinated release of new rules, concern is growing about the amount of new paperwork hitting desks each year.

Twenty rules going live on Wednesday (1 October) cover payroll and health and safety, along with other business areas. According to research by the Federation of Small Businesses, entrepreneurs would rather spend time on community projects or training staff than filling in forms.

They said:

FSB national chairman John Wright said: “Businesses will be expected to tackle around 20 new regulations that are being put in place on Wednesday. This goes against government pledges to cut back on the amount of regulation.

“In these tough times it is important for small businesses to remain economically active rather than spending their time filling in forms to adapt to new rules. The impact and costs of new regulations affecting small businesses should be properly analysed and adapted accordingly.”

We say:

Red tape is the perennial small business gripe and rightly so. Business owners are by-and-large happy to comply with laws covering health and safety, discrimination and wages, but it’s the amount of time spent ‘proving’ we have complied that irks so many.

Every year we face more and more forms to fill in and send back to various government departments. Failure to do so results in fines and investigations, yet ministers see no problem with adding to the burden twice a year.

We need sunset clauses for legislation that isn’t working, more feasibility studies for items of red tape that hold businesses back and a wholesale review of small business compliance to work out how we can reduce time spent on paperwork without putting staff at risk.

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By News Desk  on   Sep 30,2008

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Keywords

red tape    compliance    health and safety    payroll    small business    FSB   

Comments

Nic Fearon-Low
It is worth noting that a large number of changes coming into effect on 1 October are simplifications or removal of existing regulations, that will save time and money for organisations and businesses. And there are a number of changes that will bring signficiant benefits to businesses and the population at large. Regulation is not all about more paperwork or more burden on businesses. Report Abuse