August 11, 2010
Filed under: Employees — Alan @ 3:42 am
The Federation of Small Businesses stated that maternity leave regulations are in need of a ‘radical overhaul’ after publishing a report that calls for massive reform.
The FSB stated that legislation around maternity leave needs to be simplified so that SMEs are properly informed if they need to hold a job for an employee or not, as maternity rights as they stand do not force an employee to clearly state their intentions.
Instead, the FSB is calling for an overhaul that will make pregnancy leave much more flexible and simple for both parents and employers.
Research from the FSB discovered that half of all small businesses found that maternity leave is too hard to administer properly, and many business owners often question if their employees will actually return back to work.
In their vision, a maternity leave system should be created that would offer parents an upfront large sum in return for an agreed upon length of absence so that the employer in return has a clear idea of when they can expect the worker back on the job.
At the moment maternity leave is 52 weeks with women entitled to 90% of their salary for six weeks and an additional 33 weeks at the set rate of £124.88 per week.
Fathers on the other hand are allowed two weeks of pay at the £124.88 rate which must be taken consecutively and within the first 56 days after a birth although new April reforms may allow fathers to take another six months of leave.
July 23, 2010
Filed under: Small business — Alan @ 8:03 pm
A survey that included 1,200 members of the FSB showed that only four percent expect that its trading prospects will improve during the third quarter of 2010, which is much less than the 16% that believed there would be an increase in the third quarter in March.
The FSB survey suggested that it may still be quite some time before recovery is complete according to a statement from the group which means that the Government still needs to encourage SMEs to hire more staff and grow.
FSB national chairman, John Walker, stated that it is expected that 600,000 public sector jobs will be lost which will stimulate the need for new private sector jobs and even more so within small firms in order for the economy to get rebalanced.
In response to this problem, the FSB is asking for new businesses to be given National Insurance Contributions holiday and extend it to companies and businesses located across the UK.
Walker stated that the policy is supported by the FSB; they simply believe that it should help out existing businesses and be applicable across the UK.
The scheme lets new start-up businesses avoid the £5,000 fee of national insurance payments for the first ten employees that they hire within their first year of trading. It does not currently include businesses that are located in London, the south east, and the east.
Senior economist Charles Davis who helped produce the FSB report stated that the SME community seems to feel that a strong recovery is still far away and there are present business risks to growth in the future.
June 3, 2010
Filed under: Business Tools — Alan @ 11:04 am
The Government must make increasing basic broadband speeds an obligation in order to help SMES sustain recovery as they grow according to the FSB (Federation of Small Business).
The FSB positively received efforts by the Government to note the importance of broadband by tackling the problem of missing broadband in areas where customers and small businesses could benefit. In order to address the problem, the Government has appointed a new Broadband Minister.
However, in a new report by the FSB titled ‘Broadband: Steps for an Incoming Government’ the FSB states that SMEs are not able to trade as efficiently online as they could due to the lack of reliable and fast speed broadband and are urging the new Broadband Minister, Ed Vaizey, to put measures into place that will confront this problem.
Rural area small firms are not receiving the services they are promised by their broadband providers according to research from the FSB that shows almost 33% of all SMEs are told they will receive internet speeds of 2Mbps to 4Mbps with an incredible 94% claiming that they did not receive these speeds.
The slow broadband speed reduces the overall productivity of SMEs but reliable and fast broadband speed in the future could help SMEs strength their economic growth and business reach creating up to 60,000 new jobs and adding an additional £18b to the GDP in the UK.
In order to meet this goal, the FSB is asking that reliable and fast broadband is immediately put into place across the UK by the Broadband Minister.
February 18, 2010
Filed under: Employees — Alan @ 3:41 am
A new research study completed by the FSB revealed that over 60% of businesses do not think there should be a default retirement age set by the Government.
Yet, the FSB is still encouraging lawmakers to include a provision in law that will help protect the interests of employers that are forced to retire staff because they suffer from health issues that affect their performance abilities.
The survey showed that 60% of respondents have staff that is over the age of fifty and about a quarter has staff that is aged 65 years or older. Additionally, 80% of the firms that responded to the survey stated that they do not require their staff to retire at a certain age.
With 76% that feel retirement should be a concern between an employer and employee. Another 66% stated that they do not believe it is the Government’s role to declare a default retirement age.
Chairman of the Wessex Region of the Federation of the Small Businesses, Ken Moon, stated that small businesses are aware of the skills and contribution that older workers bring to their businesses and owners are not interested in creating a policy that makes all members retire at a uniform age.
Moon continued to say that businesses should be protected to make their own decisions regarding employees who have poor health and should be protected from employees that threaten to sue for being let go.
January 2, 2010
Filed under: Small business — Alan @ 5:42 am
Chairman of the FSB (Federation of Small Businesses), John Wright, said that small firms will continue to need aid in the coming year as they launch their recovery plans which will be dependent largely on help from banks.
Wright stated that Britain’s 5m SMEs will have a large role in bringing the UK out of the recession but that they need help in order to get there. Among the aid they will need from the Government, according to the chairman, are measures that will make it easier to hire employees and set up businesses.
He suggested that every jobcentre should have a business manager and systems should be enacted that would help place graduates with small businesses that need qualified employees.
In his New Year message Wright also said that banks need to be more competitive in offering finance options to small businesses. He stated that with the proper confidence and aid the SMEs will in return help provide jobs to those in need which will help boost recovery efforts throughout the UK.
A spokesman for the Department of Business stated that small business will help recovery and the Government has pledged to help the sector out which is why they lengthened the Enterprise Finance Guarantee for another year so that banks will continue to lend to smaller businesses.
Additionally the spokesman said that they are working with the FSB to pair 10,000 graduates with internships at SMEs.
October 30, 2009
Filed under: Small business — Alan @ 8:35 am
The FSB, Federation of Small Businesses, has petitioned the Chancellor not to hike taxes in their latest pre-budget report, amidst fears that higher taxes may lead to a greater rate of unemployment.
In the submission, the FSB points to a report performed by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) that shows that raising taxes costs UK businesses billions of pounds, which in turn leads to businesses being forced to cut hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The hypothetical report by the CEBR shows that a simple 1p increase in employer national insurance can result in massive job losses without actually helping out public finances in a significant manner.
Additionally, the FSB is asking that corporation taxes be reduced so that small businesses are rewarded with incentives if they hire more staff.
According to the CEBR report, if the Government were to raise corporate taxes on small businesses from 21% to 26%, 100,000 jobs would be lost from SME’s, reducing the economic output of these businesses by £4.3 billion, which in turn would only help reduce the deficit of the public sector by around £1.6b over a period of ten years.
Additionally, the FSB would like to see the VAT rise delayed as well.
