A survey of owner managed and SME businesses by accountancy firm Haines Watts has revealed major disillusionment with the previous government whose initiatives during the recession failed to help them.
The in-depth national survey of 650 owner-managed SMEs, including the Yorkshire and Humber region, showed the vast majority of owner-managed businesses felt government initiatives had provided no support during the economic downturn and had been a “waste of time”.
Only 14 per cent of business owners felt that the much-publicised VAT reduction had helped their business and a mere 11 per cent said that information and support from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills had been useful to their business, with respondents adding that government grants had been impossible to access and information about them hard to find.
No businesses surveyed in the region had taken on Carbon Trust energy efficiency loans, with an average national uptake of just two per cent and, with potential changes to the tax regime looming, 56 per cent of business owners said that an increase in Income Tax would “heavily impact” their motivation to grow the business, with 55 per cent saying the same applied to Corporation Tax.
Peter Bancroft, Managing Partner of Haines Watts Leeds office, said: “Haines Watts is a major provider of business advice to high net-worth individuals and growing businesses in the region, and this survey allows us to better focus and direct our services.
“There needs to be far more emphasis on measures that help businesses with cash flow. The VAT reduction was of little help to most business owners but was the main tax stimulus deployed by the Treasury.”
“The vast majority of the private sector workforce is employed by small-to-medium businesses. In fact, of the 4.7 million businesses in the UK, 99.3 per cent are small firms with fewer than 50 employees. It is somewhat shocking that so little has been done to assist these business owners.