Some good news for business... reduction in red tape!

Posted on November 7, 2007 by Cathy Corns

In the Queen’s Speech this week - Gordon Brown's first as Prime Minister - the government has promised a new bill to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses (a new Regulatory enforcement and sanctions bill – which actually sounds quite daunting itself!).

Worryingly bearing in mind its aim, it is apparently one of 22 Bills and seven draft bills in the legislative programme.


The new measure will we gather:

  • establish a Local Better Regulation Office, to bring consistency to local authority enforcement;
  • put in place a range of administrative sanctions for regulatory non-compliance and require that regulators would not impose unnecessary burdens;
  • ensure that a reducing unnecessary burdens imposed by local authority regulatory services is a priority.
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Business expectation is that red tape will worsen

Posted on October 4, 2007 by Cathy Corns

According to Bank of Scotland’s latest SME confidence index, almost three quarters of respondents believe that their struggles with legislation will heighten over the next three years.

Additionally, more than half of SME owners believed the need to comply with regulation is hampering their company’s performance intensely.  The majority also believe that the UK implements EU law more aggressively than it needs to.

From personal experience I know the weight (in all senses of the word) of legislation has increased and it is increasingly important to check the tax and legal implications of commercial decisions – failure to do so can be very expensive.

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