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      • £1bn To Kick-start The Economy
        10/31/11
        The Government has announced that it is on an “all-out mission” to kick-start industry amidst claims that it has been too focused on reducing the country’s deficit and not doing enough to boost growth.

        In a newspaper interview, Chancellor George Osborne wrote: “In terms of future

      • To Have Or Have Not
        10/28/11
        As news emerges that pay for the directors of many of the UK’s FTSE 100 companies rose 50 per cent over the past year, research shows that the average pay rise in the private sector was just 2.6 per cent. And in the public sector there has been a general pay freeze for most workers.

        T

      • Small Businesses Lose Money Through Energy Inefficiency
        10/27/11
        According to E.ON, one of the UK’s leading energy suppliers, small businesses in the UK are losing £7.7bn every year because they aren’t taking sufficient care in improving their energy efficiency.

        Research by E.ON showed that nearly four million of the UK’s 4.8 million small busin

      • QE2 No Guarantee Of Lending
        10/26/11
        Bank of England Governor Mervyn King has told MPs that the £75bn the Bank has injected into the economy in a bid to aid the UK’s recovery is no guarantee that the commercial banks will lend more to business.

        However, Mr King said that he thought that lending would have fallen if the ac

      • Nick Clegg Calls For Relaxation Of Rules
        10/25/11
        In a speech to small business leaders in East London later today Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will call for a reduction in the number of “intrusive visits” that state inspectors can make on businesses.

        Some companies face up to 12 visits a year from such bodies as Her Majesty’s

      • “Forgotten’ Medium-Sized Businesses
        10/24/11
        A report issued today by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and management consultancy McKinsey has said that the Government and City should focus on Britain’s ‘forgotten army’ of medium-sized firms as a way of boosting the economy by up to £50bn a year over the next decade.
      • Digital Dough
        10/21/11
        Figures released this week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that almost £1 in every £10 spent on buying goods is now spent on-line. We spent around £539m on-line each week in September, meaning that shopping on the internet is becoming part of the retail habit.

        The inte

      • Small Business Afraid Of Bankers
        10/20/11
        Owners of small businesses are afraid of approaching their bank to ask for more money in case they have existing facilities withdrawn or deals renegotiated, according to the Bank of England’s regional Agents.

        In the agents’ monthly summary of business conditions, they report that “f

      • Millions To Get Tax Rebates
        10/19/11
        Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has announced that around six million taxpayers will be sent cheques averaging £400 for overpayment of tax dating back several years. And just over a million will get a bill for underpaid tax averaging £600.

        The reconciliations follow widesp

      • Small Business Confidence Wavers
        10/18/11
        According to insolvency trade body R3, more small companies are experiencing decreased profits, with over 40 per cent of them saying that their margins took a hit in the last quarter and 20 per cent reporting that they regularly exceed their overdrafts.

        The quarterly Business Distress Ind

      • Cable Frustrated By Treasury
        10/17/11
        Business Minister Vince Cable is finding that his attempt to reduce at the regulatory burden on business is being frustrated by the Treasury’s apparent unwillingness to take part in his “red tape challenge”.

        The red tape challenge was launched as an attempt to begin cutting the 21,0

      • Pension Age Rise Delayed
        10/14/11
        The state pension age for women was due to rise to 65 by 2018, before rising again for both men and women to 66 by April 2020. That left some 245,000 women facing a wait of between 19 months and 24 months. And the worst hit 33,000 women, all aged 57 now, had complained that the changes gave them an

      • Fewer Students Staying In Education
        10/13/11
        According to recent research carried out by the Association of Colleges (AC), there has been a marked drop in the number of students staying on at college after the age of 16 as a result of Government cuts.

        Half the 182 colleges surveyed in a major study published today said that student

      • Banks Ready To Accept Ring-Fencing
        10/12/11
        When the heads of the major UK banks appeared in front of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee this week they accepted that ring-fencing their retail operations from their investment arms was probably a “done deal”, which they would accept.

        The ring-fencing proposal was put f

      • SMEs Face “Deeper” Funding Problem
        10/11/11
        In an interview yesterday Business Secretary Vince Cable has admitted that small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) face a funding problem despite the Project Merlin deal to encourage bank lending to them.

        Mr Cable defended the Project Merlin agreement but admitted that “new mechanisms

      • Cost of Living At 20-Year High
        10/10/11
        According to economists at Oriel Securities, consultants in corporate and institutional stockbroking, spending on essentials such as food utilities, petrol and mortgages accounts for over 7 per cent of household income. Ten years ago the spending on such items was more than 10 per cent less.
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      • Red Tape To Be Cut
        10/07/11
        The Government announced the start of a consultation yesterday, which could see small businesses saving more than £600m in audit fees every year. The consultation on Audit Exemptions and Change of Accounting Framework sets out plans to allow more small companies and subsidiaries of larger ones to

      • Growth Figures Revised
        10/06/11
        The UK economy only grew by 0.1 per cent in the second quarter of this year, which was less than the 0.2 per cent estimated by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). And output from the service sector grew by 0.2 per cent in the quarter, compared with the previous estimate of 0.5 per cent.
      • Stress More Common Than The Common Cold
        10/05/11
        For the first time since the survey began 12 years ago, stress is the most common cause of long-term sickness absence for employees, according to this year’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Simplyhealth Absence Management survey.

        Apparently most of the stress is

      • B2B Companies Lack Social Media Skills
        10/04/11
        According to a survey conducted by PwC, B2B companies know that they need a social media strategy but are not spending their money in the right places, effectively wasting millions.

        Despite investing financially in social media, to the tune of over £1m, fewer than 12 per cent of the comp

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