Many people wonder if we will go back to normal after the pandemic, it’s a question people are increasingly asking as the lockdown starts to lift, many think things will change perhaps for the better, but one thing is for certain we will all take the threat of a global pandemic and its associated […]

Government’s approach beyond coronavirus Background The coronavirus pandemic has exposed and reinforced a problem that we have discussed with government before and it’s an issue they will have to deal with after the current crisis, rather than just trying to go back to the way things were. There are two main criticisms of the existing […]

  At the Forum we are all aware of the difficulties facing the hospitality industries, be it restaurants, bars, clubs and pubs, they had no choice but to close at very short notice. Another sector which is being badly impacted upon is the sports industry, we know that professional sports fixtures have been cancelled with […]

  Obviously, the Forum has been extremely busy during this time of turmoil for all businesses particularly the smaller ones that we represent and make up most of our membership. A number of these are rural businesses but one of the Forum of Private business real concerns has come from our members in the Hospitality […]

Here at the Forum we have criticized Government for taking a one size fits all approach to business, they treat small business like big business only smaller and this causes many problems from poor communication to bad policies and regulations. There are many different levels of small business, sole traders, micro businesses employing a couple […]

  Having listened to the last budget before the Coronavirus impacted on the country and then seen the latest round of treasury support for R&D the Future fund, which again seems aimed at technology firms, it got me thinking about innovation and the government’s attitude and understanding of innovation, creativity and how it works. First, […]

The Business which were ignored are now paying the price Background For all the time that I have been involved with the Forum of Private Business, there have been three business sectors that have been a concern, for our members who work in them. As a result, we have spent a lot of time and […]

Forum Member Ideas During the Coronavirus Pandemic, Forum members, as you would expect have been using our resources in order to get practical advice and help. We have done our best to keep them up to speed with what is going on as well as telling them what it means to them and what action […]

  One of the things that the Corvid-19 lockdown has done is to make people think, think about how they live their lives, think about loved ones, to think about their neighbours and their community and also to think about how they do business. With this in mind, I have started to think about what […]