SME Business News

Excessive parking fees and fines from town centre car parking facilities will kill High Street businesses, the Federation of Small Businesses FSB has warned local authorities.
Income from town centre parking in 2005 raised a staggering £1.6billion for local authorities, rising from just £628million in 1997.
The FSB has urged local government to re think the parking […]

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Government agency the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) has blamed ‘business conditions’ in the UK  and the unwillingness to invest in ‘key management training’ as the stumbling blocks for small businesses attempting to turn their enterprise into world leaders such as Microsoft and Google.
While the report acknowledges that the UK is […]

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4fx Healthcare, a Nottinghamshire business employing just three people, has been recognised alongside 150 businesses earning this years Queens Award for Enterprise.
4fx was recognised for its innovative nasal aspirator which removes congestion from babies’ noses, and are the joint smallest business winner in 2008, alongside North Yorkshires British Horse Feeds.
Other SMEs picking up awards are […]

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Simon Long and Philip Benson are two young university graduate entrepreneurs, who while spending a year in America as part of their degree, discovered the Juice Bar concept and decided to bring it to the UK.
After graduating, they pair formed a company called Xing Health, and introduced the healthy smoothie to universities, schools and health clubs […]

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Dragons’ Den Panelist Deborah Meaden, has this week launched a campaign in conjunction with the Federation Of Small Businesses (FSB), to urge more people to start their own business in the UK.
The campaign is aimed particularly at getting women to follow their dream and set up in business. FSB research has shown that just 11% […]

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Credit risk specialists Graydon have called on the Government to reassess regulations introduced ten years ago aimed at assisting small businesses in tackling the issues of late payment.
The 1998 regulations allow companies to impose interest on bad paying debtors, but  research has shown that the vast majority of SMEs do not  exercise that right. It […]

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The campaign to delay the new Sexual Harassment Law coming into force on Sunday April 6th showed good signs of support from SMEs, although the new rules were implemented as planned by the Government.
The campaign was started by BusinessZone.co.uk and HRZone.co.uk, who on behalf of small business owners, viewed the plans as something that SMEs […]

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A Lobby group working on behalf of SMEs, has urged small business owners to sign a petition on the Downing Street website, to delay the implementation of the new sexual harassment laws, laid down by Parliament three weeks ago. The changes will come into force today.
The group argue that SMEs need more time to ensure […]

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A Survey carried out by Barclays in Wales found that 48% of Welsh SMEs experience problems with late payment.
This isn’t really news to small business owners across the UK and I think it is fair to say that Barclays would find a similar result in any part of the country.
More disturbing for me, was to […]

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