SME Business News

As the leaders of the three main political parties join for the final of the groundbreaking televised debates today, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has raised key arguments which it believes are vital to strengthening economic recovery that each party leader should answer to.
Small businesses are the UKs biggest employer with 4.8 million businesses [...]

[Read more →]

I have just read an interesting post on the FPB blog:
“Small and medium-sized businesses have revealed just how high their hopes are that the election result will pull them out of difficult conditions. Recent statistics from Aviva found 70 per cent of SME’s are hoping the election will have a ‘significant impact’ on their fortunes. [...]

[Read more →]

Unemployment figures confirm that recovery is still too fragile for small firms to take on more staff, says FSB
As unemployment increased to 2.5 million, new figures from the ‘FSB Voice of Small Business Index’ show that while small firms are slowly moving into recovery they still aren’t in a position to take on more staff. [...]

[Read more →]

The UK’s economy expanded by 0.2 per cent in the first quarter of the year, official figures have revealed.
The rate of GDP growth for the January to March period was lower than had been anticipated on the back of a 0.4 per cent expansion in the last three months of 2009.
According to the Office for [...]

[Read more →]

The Forum of Private Business is advising smaller employers affected by the Icelandic volcano eruption to be flexible with stranded staff – but know when to draw the line on unpaid leave.
Many small businesses are continuing to struggle in the wake of the worst recession in a generation and employers should be aware of the [...]

[Read more →]

Workplace law must be rebalanced in favour of employers, rather than individuals, it has been claimed.
According to the Forum of Private Business (FPB), increasingly-onerous employment legislation has put many smaller firms off hiring, or even advertising new roles.The organisation believes redressing the balance between employers’ and employees’ rights should be one of the key priorities [...]

[Read more →]

FSB-ICM research shows that the Government needs to provide better information to small businesses to help them go green.
Small firms feel that energy efficiency can provide their business with cost savings but said they need the Government to put systems and business support incentives in place to help, according to the findings of a Federation [...]

[Read more →]

The Bank of England has kept interest rates at their record low level of 0.5% as it continues to inject life into the economy.
The Monetary Policy Committee also opted not to alter the £200bn it has spent so far on quantitative easing (QE) to boost the money supply.
Its decision comes in the wake of recent [...]

[Read more →]

Banks must develop stronger relationships with their small business customers if they are to recover from the economic crisis, according to a new report.
While small businesses contribute a third of the retail banking industry’s net banking income they represents half of its risk-weighted assets, according to the report from Capgemini, UniCredit and the European financial [...]

[Read more →]

The average cost for the Independent Business Review needed for larger “time to pay” agreements is estimated to be £42,500, says Wilkins Kennedy, the Top 25 accountancy firm.
From April 6 all businesses hoping to defer a tax payment of over £1m under the “time to pay” scheme will need to pay for an Independent Business [...]

[Read more →]