Tips for Making the Most of the Government’s Small Business Initiatives
When it comes to supporting entrepreneurs, David Cameron’s intentions are clear: “We need to see a country where new businesses are starting up on every street, in every town” he proclaimed. It’s rousing stuff but what do the Government’s Small Business Initiatives really offer?
Enterprise Zones
Small businesses starting in one of the new ‘Enterprise Zones’ will benefit from lower taxes, more relaxed planning laws and regulations and super-fast broadband. Zones include:
- Birmingham and Solihull
- Leeds
- Sheffield
- Liverpool
- Greater Manchester
- West of England
- Tees Valley
- North Eastern
- The Black Country
- Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire
- London’s Royal Docks
Grants
There are a number of grants and low-interest loans available for small business projects, from UK regional governments as well as the British Government. The UK Business Funding Centre (UKBFC) can be a good place to start your research; it boasts an easy-to-use Grant Wizard to help you find out what funding programmes you could qualify for. A word of warning though, there is a limited amount of money to go around, so lesser-known, local initiatives may be worth looking into. For example, you might be eligible for what’s known as a ‘train to gain grant’, if your company helps its staff to develop new skills.
The Small Profits Rate
The government has decreed that any business with profits of up to £300,000 can automatically benefit from the Small Profits Rate, which fell to 20% in April. Also the relief scheme associated with this is now set to run until 30 September 2012.
Business Rate Relief scheme
The newly extended Business Rate Relief Scheme relates to businesses with a rateable value of below £18,000 a year (or less than £25,500 in Greater London) and allows them to claim up to half of their business rates back from the Chancellor. That said, thousands of businesses are yet to claim back the money they’re entitled to, so make sure you’re not one of them.
Changes to Red Tape
Red tape can be an inconvenient overhead for any business. The good news is that companies with fewer than ten employees will get a three year period of grace to become compliant with any regulations brought in by parliament. On top of this some regulations have been scrapped altogether for companies with fewer than 250 staff.
Apprenticeships
The government plans to create 40,000 extra apprenticeships and 100,000 work experience schemes for young people over the next two years. Why not maximise on this to build a skilled and motivated workforce for a fraction of what it might cost otherwise?
Business Coaching
If you think your company could benefit from expertise on top of grants and rates relief, you may want to look into the government’s ‘Business Coaching for Growth’ scheme. This new programme will incorporate specialist business development coaching, access to innovation facilities and valuable networking opportunities.
Overall the message is that there is financial and practical assistance on offer; it’s simply down to SMEs to get out there to seek it out.
About the author: Jasper Martens is the community manager at SimplyBusiness.co.uk who offer a range of products and services for SMEs including Professional Indemnity Insurance.
Whilst these initiatives are welcome they really don’t go far enough to correct for the enormous damage being done to small business by the radical cuts in public sector spending and lack of consumer confidence that in turn reduces the spend of all businesses. We need some very clear measures to increase the flow of cash inside the business world. Over the last two years average payment terms have grown from 30 days to around 60 days. With Overdrafts and loans very expensive and hard to come by this is not a sustainable situation.
These measures almost suggest it would be better to dump whatever business you are building now and start a new one in one of their swanky enterprise zones. Surely it’s better to support an established business with a track record than look for the new businesses. I employ people already, I pay taxes already, help me to continue to grow.
Simple things the government could do tomorrow to make SME’s life easier:
Allow VAt Payments to be monthly for businesses below £1million turnover – Simplifies cash-flow and improves revenue stream to HMRC at no cost. (and it’s optional so if it doesn’t suit your business you don’t have to do it because one size doesn’t fit all)
Give SMe’s National insurance breaks (for 1 year) for employing people under the age of 25 who are not currently in work. Reduces the number of unemployed on benefits and encourages growth in business by making the work force younger.
Do the same for people over 55 – for the same reasons – keeping people in work longer increase tax revenues for HMRC.
Give SMe’s Tax breaks for having accredited apprentices. Make the cost of the apprentice tax deductible from profits if the apprentice goes on to work full time with the firm. (This ensures companies don’t just take on apprentices for the tax break, it has to be real growth, sustainable) will significantly increase Apprentice numbers and improve quality of accreditation’s.
Something a bit more radical
Offset Corporation Tax for growth investment. Allow a firm to use unto 50% of their corporation liability (upto £50K) for investment in new staff or premises. This could be done once every 2 or 3 years, this is big society thinking, I take the money and invest it in growth rather than waiting for it to trickle back to me from the government.
Just a few thoughts….But they would all create real growth for everyone rather than this rather selective tokenism we have to deal with currently.
Setting Mikrotik dan Proxy