The Government has pledged to slash red tape for businesses ahead of next week’s Budget.
The changes include making compliance guidance clearer, simpler and small business-friendly; simplifying the UK’s corporate reporting requirements; reducing duplicative reporting burdens for asset managers; streamlining the home-buying and selling process, saving money for businesses in the transaction chain; and extending import tariff suspensions on more than 250 products favoured by businesses.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Chancellor John Healey said they could save businesses a combined £800 million.
They will today meet with small business owners and representative organisations, including the Federation of Small Businesses, at Number 10 North.
There, they will accept recommendations from the Small Business Taskforce, which has seen government work in partnership with business leaders over the past months to identify and reduce the bureaucracy holding firms back.
“If you run a business, you want to spend your time serving your customers, creating jobs and growing your firm, not filling in unnecessary forms,” said Burnham.
“It’s not right that pointless bureaucracy gets in the way of people working hard to build something that matters to their high street.
“So we’re getting government off their backs and giving businesses the breathing space to grow. Because when businesses succeed, they create good jobs, strengthen their communities and bring growth to every part of the country.”
Healey added: “British firms are fed up with form-filling and pointless paperwork that eats into valuable time and money when they simply want to get on with running their businesses.
“That is why we are cutting unnecessary bureaucracy and giving businesses the breathing space they need to invest, innovate and create good jobs.”
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Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds added: “A baker should be filling pasties, not forms. This sounds simple but thousands of businesses are spending hours having to prioritise complicated paperwork and duplicate reporting over grafting, investing and achieving their full potential.
“We’ve heard loud and clear that this must change if we are to unlock their potential, which is why we’re stripping away needless bureaucracy, simplifying how businesses deal with government, and making them an equal partner with a voice in shaping the rules that affect them.”
Tina McKenzie, national chair of the Federation of Small Businesses said: “The Regulatory Taskforce has been a good example of business and Government working in partnership to address a common problem. Currently, the weight of compliance can be a struggle, costing time, money, and stress that small businesses can ill afford. Today’s report is an important first step in addressing that.
“The Taskforce’s report sets out clear, practical, and tailored recommendations to help lessen the burden of red tape on small businesses, enabling them to devote more resources to growth and job creation.
“Pausing the plans for full profit and loss accounts to be filed at Companies House by the smallest businesses is a huge step in the right direction, averting a huge new weight of red tape on the very businesses with the fewest resources to deal with it.”