Federation of Small Businesses - FSB Weekly Brief 28

In this week’s issue: Sunday trading, congestion charge, criminal checks, cigarettes, export help, Windows 98, World Cup final, entrepreneur research, swearing and ‘Open All Hours’.

1. Praise be on Sundays!
The FSB has won a famous victory to keep Sunday trading laws in England and Wales unchanged. The Government had been planning to open up supermarkets for extended hours on Sundays, over and above the 6 hours they get at the moment. The Mail on Sunday covered the story and the FSB’s reaction to it last weekend.

2. Red Ken turns green?
The Mayor of London is aiming to raise the congestion charge for ‘gas-guzzlers’ from £8 a day to £25 a day. The FSB fears that this may unintentionally hit small business’ essential journeys and “sound the death knell for many small businesses in London”. Concerns abound as to whether this scheme threatens to be tried elsewhere in the country soon. Richard Morse of the FSB’s views appeared in the FT and Daily Mail this week.

3. It's Criminal!
Reports are reaching us that the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) is causing hold-ups in certain businesses that have to go to the CRB for checks before employing new staff. We're trying to find out if this is a widespread problem or is just confined to one area or sector before we take this any further. If this is causing your business a problem please e-mail rosina.robson@fsb.org.uk to let her know how it's affecting you.

4. Raising the age limit to buy cigarettes
The Government is currently consulting on whether to raise the age at which you can buy cigarettes. The FSB will be feeding in the thoughts of the membership so any views you might have should go to francesca.woodhouse@fsb.org.uk and we’ll pass them on.

5. Excellent export assistance?
Do you export? If you do and your firm has benefited from particularly good (or bad come to think of it) service from UK commercial attaché staff overseas you can join in the FSB and Daily Telegraph’s award scheme to recognise them. This has featured heavily in the paper recently gaining the FSB excellent coverage. Go to www.telegraph.co.uk/attache to vote for your candidate before July 18th. All those who nominate someone will go into a hat and a winner drawn at random will receive a bottle of House of Commons Champagne. The FSB’s Tina Sommer will be our rep on the judging panel.

5. One Window closed
Microsoft has announced that it will no longer provide support for Windows 98. Users may, from now on, be vulnerable to viruses and the like as new updates will not be forthcoming. Research found that current Windows 98 users are mainly domestic and small business clients. If you are still using Microsoft Windows 98 and want more information go to www.microsoft.com/windows/support/endofsupport.mspx.

6. World Cup – they think it’s all over…
…it is now but you still have a few more hours to tell us how it was for your business before we close the poll on Monday, tally the results and release them to the media. Voting takes 2 seconds – literally – and it’s all anonymous. The more votes we get the more credible the results so please go to http://www.fsb.org.uk/polls/ to tell us what effect, good, bad or indifferent, it had on your firm.

7. Entrepreneurial Britain
The independent think tank The Tenon Forum has published research on SMEs for the past year and looking into the coming year carried out by NOP and analysed in the Forum’s new report. You can find the report at www.tenongroup.com/Forum/_Reports/2006-TenonForumWave8.pdf

8. I swear this is a good opportunity!
A recent survey found that only 37% of managers objected to their colleagues swearing at work. Channel 4 is making a documentary examining swearing and is looking for businesses to participate. Do you or your colleagues swear frequently? How do you feel about swearing? Do we need to be concerned? Please contact Melody on 020 7855 7406 or email: swearing@diverse.tv

9. The Real ‘Open All Hours’
A national TV company is looking into creating a fly-on-the-wall documentary about corner shops. The show would cover the role that the shop plays in the local community and would likely involve ‘warts and all’ filming over a period of a few weeks. Anyone interested in participating should call David Street on 07770 782211 – he would love to hear from you.

Coming up next week – more figures from our employment advice line, the results of the World Cup poll and the return of your regular correspondent.