I started this blog with the intention of reviewing the latest budget, which was presented yesterday by Chancellor Rishi Sunak, as we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and are hoping that most of the existing lockdown measures will be eased by June 21st. The budget contained some measures which […]
Your Personal finances The personal allowance and income tax thresholds for basic and higher-rate taxpayers will rise in April and then be frozen until 2026 – increasing their tax as earnings rise. Income tax rates and thresholds are set in a different way in Scotland and Wales. The inheritance tax nil rate band, the capital […]
A guest blog from our Health and Safety partner MD Safety Management. It is known that both drugs and alcohol misuse affects certain brain functions leading to lack of judgement, self-control and co-ordination and also a loss of inhibition. All these factors can be a contributory cause of accidents in the […]
Paul Uppal, Forum Non-Executive Director Late Payment & Bad Business Practices Paul Uppal was the Government’s Small Business Commissioner from 2017 to 2019. Paul made giant strides towards ensuring fair payment practices for small businesses and changing the late payment culture in the UK by supporting them in resolving payment disputes with larger firms. […]
Making Business Better Setting up and running a business can be incredibly rewarding but there are also many problems to be faced. Not only are there economic pressures to be handled but there is a huge amount of administration, law and regulation to be understood and implemented. Any shortcomings in a company’s operations may cause […]
The issues facing the high street were already causing many problems before the impact of COVID-19 and the lockdown. But we now face the deep scars to our retail sector and Britain’s high streets as we come out of the initial lockdown and we are going to have to be even more creative and innovative […]
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 […]