Federation of Small Businesses - FSB Weekly Brief 18 of 2007

In this week’s issue: changes to the Small Business Service, energy contracts, cheques, procurement, flexible working, bankruptcy, elections.

1. FSB invited onto new consultation panel
The Small Business Service has ditched the Small Business Council and replaced it with the new Small Business Forum. The FSB was involved with the former and will be involved with the latter. The Daily Telegraph ran a story on the subject and quoted FSB National Chairman John Wright thus: “For our members to create more jobs and generate more wealth for the UK economy they need government to get off their backs.” Well quite.

2. The long road to fairer energy contracts for small businesses
The FSB first began campaigning to get small businesses a fairer deal from their gas and electricity suppliers way back in November 2005. But there were stories this week that expensive cancellation clauses, confusing small print and duplicitous salespeople are still rife. The FSB’s Head of Parliamentary Affairs Stephen Alambritis braved the TV cameras at BBC 2’s Working Lunch (they just can’t get enough of the FSB - that’s three weeks in a row!) to highlight the lack of protection that small business energy users get compared with their domestic counterparts. For the low-down on small businesses and their energy companies, go to www.smallbusinessenergy.org.uk.

3. Too early to cheque out
A piece in Which? magazine (the consumer organisation) about large retailers deciding not to accept cheque payments, in which the FSB was quoted, caught the imagination of mainstream hacks this week. The BBC News website and The Guardian subsequently ran stories about how some small businesses still rely on cheques. In its comment on the subject, the FSB was realistic about the fact that cheques would gradually disappear as a means of payment, but was keen to ensure that small businesses that use them are not put at a disadvantage.

4. Small business defence contracts
The Ministry of Defence this week launched a new initiative to help Small and Medium Enterprises to win more defence contracts. >From 30 April 2007, the threshold value for advertising MOD contracts was lowered. The idea is to encourage more competitive bidding for a wider range of defence business and encourage greater innovation from industry. More info at www.mod.gov.uk.

5. Acas advice on flexible working changes
The employment relations service Acas is running workshops on how small employers can cope with changes under the Work and Families Act, which came in last month. Information on the changes and Acas’ good practice guide can be found at www.acas.org.uk.

6. Battling bankruptcy
BBC Radio 4 wants to hear from small businesses who are have within the last couple of years experienced aggressive tactics by accountants / insolvency practitioners to push them into bankrupcty unfairly. The email to email is karen.kiernan@bbc.co.uk and the number to ring is 0161 244 3931.

7. A vote for small business?
As this newsletter goes out, votes are frantically being counted to decide the makeup of councils in England, as well as the shape of things to come in the Scottish Parliament and in the Welsh Assembly. The FSB believes the politicians should be considering the needs of the small businesses community and has not been backward in coming forward to tell them so. Below are links to the FSB’s priorities in Scotland, Wales and in English councils:

http://www.fsb.org.uk/data/default.asp?id=33&loc=scotland;

http://www.fsb.org.uk/data/default.asp?loc=wales&id=0;

http://www.fsb.org.uk/documentstore/filedetails.asp?id=371.

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