The Future of Small Businesses may be looking up...
Despite the fact that many contractors are still struggling to
find and keep work, National Statistics prove that the economy grew
at the start of the year and in fact expanded by 0.5% over the
first 3 months.
This is obviously good news as there surely must be work out
there if businesses are continuing to be born. On the down side,
any growth is going to be slow or "sluggish" so let's not get
carried away! The FSB (Federation of Small Business) carried
out a survey where more than 1500 firms confirmed that the previous
bad weather and the increase in VAT at the beginning of the year
had severely impacted on their confidence in business.
According to the FSB, business confidence had been falling during
the last three quarters up to the end of 2010 hence the
Government's decision to bring forward plans to develop this area
and get small business growth on track again.
John Walker, Chairman at the FSB has said that "a number of
pressures on small businesses are beginning to come to a head, such
as the increase in VAT and fuel duty, placing more strain on
cashflow…" He went on to say that "this combined with the
severe weather at the end of 2010 has meant that small firms are
not as confident about their prospects in 2011."
However, a report by MP's states the governments business growth
plan will simply not be enough without help from the banks and
Vince Cable has accepted that there is more to be done.
According to the BBC, the report says that "deals already struck
were a step in the right direction, but there are still no concrete
signs business is getting the access to capital it needs."
"We had an agreement last week with the banks on improving bank
lending to businesses, we've put in place now a set of policies to
promote apprenticeships, we announced last week a strategy for
trade," Mr Cable told the BBC.
"All the key elements of growth are there. They are joined
up." But he added: "We know there is more to be done."
With all this being said, it looks as though it's going to take
some time but surely things can only get better? Let's keep
our fingers crossed.