Category: News

New research published today signals a strong focus on growth amongst UK’s small businesses and an ambition to take their business onto the next level is returning after recent negative.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has accepted that there is more to be done to help business as a report by MPs has said that the government’s growth strategy will have little effect without the support of the banks.

The CBI is urging the Government to be bold in its approach to waste policy and recognise its potential to deliver easy wins on a number of big policy areas from meeting climate change targets and bolstering energy security to helping unlock infrastructure investment.

Following the announcement of ‘Project Merlin’ yesterday, the requirement by banks to lend up to £200billion to small and medium sized businesses this year is ‘meaningless’, a senior banking executive admitted.

Businesses entering administration fell by almost a quarter across England in the last quarter of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009, with the fall in insolvency numbers much more pronounced in London and the South East.

Small businesses face a “significant disadvantage” when bidding for contracts from Government and the Ministry of Defence (MoD), a report has said.

The non-profit organisation Enterprise UK, which runs Global Enterprise Week in the UK, has announced that it is to close after more than six years following the withdrawal of public funding.

Following the controversy surrounding Sharon Wright, her company Talpa Products, and entrepreneur James Caan’s following a pitch on Dragons’ Den, which we reported on a few months ago, we understand that it may well now be Caan who will be pitching to a different kind of judge as Wright has launched High Court action against Caan.

The government plans to allow parents to share childcare and will allow new fathers to take up to 10 months of paid paternity leave, a huge increase from the two weeks currently allowed.

The government has announced that it is to scrap the default retirement age of 65 this year, against the wishes of businesses, who wanted another year to manage the change, and who fear it will cause legal confusion and lead to a rise in cases taken to employment tribunals.

David Cameron plans to kick-start small business sector growth by making it easier to sack staff in the first two years of their employment.

The British Chambers of Commerce have released figures highlighting the costs for business in the current employment tribunal system and urging for a reform to the unworkable, and unaffordable system.

David Cameron has today unveiled plans to support 40,000 new enterprises over the next two years by offering grants and loans to unemployed people who can show they have a robust business plan.

&Nearly half of all small and medium sized businesses that keep poor trading records are set to face investigation and fines of up to £3,000 under a planned HM Revenue Customs clamp down.