The Budget & Business

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With this year’s budget looming on the horizon this week businesses small and large alike will be watching with interest to see how they might be affected. Although companies from different industries may have their own particular wish list of changes that they’d like to see there are without doubt certain fiscal policies that could be advantageous to all. Easy Offices has attempted to look into their own ‘pre Budget Crystal Ball’ and created a ‘please can I have…..’ list for Chancellor, George Osborne.

The Budget Wednesday will be arguably the most important and keenly watched for George Osborne and the Coalition Government since they came into power. With businesses struggling and the outlook from many respected Economists for the year showing marginal growth of less than 1% Easy Offices will look at some of the factors affecting businesses in the days before the Budget. We’re going to start with one of the major obstacles confronting both new and established businesses, Access to Finance.

 

Finance for Business.

The major obstacle for most businesses today is accessing finance but it’s particularly relevant to small and medium sized businesses with limited Assets or Securities for Financial Institutions to lend against. There have been several heralded schemes initiated by the government but have they really worked, have the lenders met their financial targets, are start-up business able to borrow more freely, are more established businesses able to borrow to fund expansion and create jobs?

The government pinned its hopes on the fact that private industry would step in to create the growth in business which in turn they hoped would lead to job creation but this hasn’t happened. Now after severe criticism from many Business Leaders, Small Business Federations and the like, will the Chancellor drop his obsession with austerity measures and actually look at growth. The question is, if he doesn’t where will it come from in the short term?

The government has already initiated several schemes for Businesses but are they working? A recent survey suggests not:

Banks rejected more than 40% of loan applications from small businesses, leading to a fall in business confidence this summer, a survey has found. The number of credit refusals increased to 42.4% – up from 40.6% in the previous quarter – according to research by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

 

John Walker, FSB national chairman, said: “It isn’t surprising that confidence fell back into negative territory as the recession entered its third quarter as growth flat-lines.”The message is clear though – businesses want to grow and invest but they need a helping hand to do so. It is frustrating that bank finance is still difficult to get. recession entered its third quarter as growth flat-lines.”No matter what is said about demand, more than 40% of applicants have been refused in each quarter this year. This has to change if growth aspirations are to be met.

“I’m pleased that the Chancellor and Business Secretary have committed to looking at a small business bank. While it is urgent to address access to finance, it is critical to get the right structure in order for it to work properly. It must be for the long-term and not just a short-term measure for the recession.”

Read more articles on this topic below and let us know what you think:

1. Guide to Accessing Government Finance for SME’s from March 2013.
2. Small Business Finance Advice from FSB ( Federation of Small Business ).
3. ~110 million Government / Private Sector Finance package for Small Business.
4. Business Finance Explained from Government Feb 2013.

2 thoughts on “The Budget & Business”

  1. Not sure it’s going to be very exciting to be honest. Finance for business has been continually promised but not been forthcoming, yet anyway!

  2. It is a golden rule of Budgets that it is better to concentrate on the price of booze, fags and how much tax people pay because all the other stuff is of no interest to the general public. And it is the general public that ultimately decides the fate of Chancellors.

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