The Chancellor of the Exchequer made his Budget speech to the House of Commons today. Changes include:
- an updated economic forecast, which shows that the UK economy is stable and growing;
- major reforms to the corporate tax system, reducing the headline corporation tax rate from 30 per cent to 28 per cent from April 2008;
- investment in education and skills in the UK to rise to £90 billion by 2010-11;
- the restriction of tax relief available on empty commercial properties, to encourage the supply of office, retail and industrial premises;
- further enhancements to research and development tax credits, to encourage innovation;
- further reforms to modernise the tax system; and an increase in the tax rate for small companies to tackle individuals artificially incorporating to minimise tax.
For a more comprehensive list of changes affecting businesses please visit the Business Link 21 March 07 Budget overview
A number of regulation changes come into force between now and April. Key changes are as follows:
Health, safety, premises:
Employing people:
Additional regulations affecting specific industry sectors or types of business also come into force on or before April. Find out more
Business Link regulation updates
Business Link provides comprehensive at-a-glance regulation updates about changing regulations that affect small businesses. View regulation updates
This month we look at performance related dismissals and statutory sick pay.
Q: Is poor performance a valid reason to dismiss someone?
A: Yes, but in practice it should be the very last resort after a number of alternatives have been tried. Your first step should be to discuss the matter with the employee in question, and to let them know the performance standards you expect of them. Give them time and support, and provide any necessary training. If this doesn’t work, see if there is an alternative role within your business that the employee might be better suited to. If none of these options works, you should explain sympathetically to the employee that you will be dismissing them.
Q: How much sick pay am I required to pay to my employees?
A: Employees are entitled to a statutory minimum level of sick pay starting from the fourth day off work in any bout of illness. This is known as Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) and it applies for a maximum of 28 days per illness. Currently the weekly rate of SSP is £70.05, some of which you may be able to reclaim from the government. Bear in mind that you do not have to pay SSP if you already provide more generous contractual entitlements. Many employers provide full pay to employees who are off sick, and it may make recruitment more difficult if you limit yourself to providing the legal minimum.
Read our guide to Dismissals and Statutory sick pay
Business Link has developed a new, free, electronic information service especially designed to keep you up-to-date with the latest business information, ideas and tips for success.
A new website www.businesslinksw.co.uk will form the heart of the service, which will be launched this April.
The site will carry over 5,000 pages of content and more than 400 guides on everything from starting a business to exporting, providing quick and easy access to the very latest business information.
Additional features include:
- 50 plus interactive business tools and checklists
- the ability to browse and save information into one, especially designed and indexed ‘PDF book’ to print off and use for future reference
- VAT and tax calendars
- options to personalise email alerts to keep up to-date with regulation changes a new search tool for easy information access
- a list of local business events.
To complement the website, ‘business i’ will remain a monthly service and will continue to provide the best and most vital information delivered direct to your inbox. This will include the latest legislation changes and other important ‘need to know’ information, all designed to assist business planning and operations. Multimedia podcasts on topical issues, a business blog with a searchable archive of past content, subject categorised articles and an opportunity to express your views and ideas are all further additional features to be found online at www.businessi.info
New telephone number and email address
In addition to the new electronic service, the Business Link Information Centre can be contacted personally to help answer any business related issues on a new telephone number - 0845 600 9 006.
If you would prefer to contact our Information Centre by email, our new address will be enquiry@businesslinksw.co.uk
During the past few decades global software brands have enjoyed huge profits licensing software to business customers. Open source software is challenging this model, offering free or low cost software solutions for business.
A leading example of the power of open source software is Linux. Used by global IT companies such as Google and Amazon, Linux offers a reliable, secure and highly customizable server environment - for free. And it’s not just server software; Sun Microsystems offer Open Office, an office suite fully compatible with other major alternatives.
Many open source projects succeed because of community participation - developers and users share their experiences offering modifications and improvements that may later be built into the software itself. Other projects are pioneered by global companies - Apple, IBM and Google all develop open source software.
The main consideration when reviewing open source software is how to obtain support if things go wrong. From developing custom functionality to ensuring compatibility, you’re not entitled to support. There’s often a wealth of knowledge online that could solve your problem - but you will need to know where to look, and must be technically capable of implementing what might be complex solutions.
Open source software provides many benefits, but it’s not always the best solution. The important thing is to review all the options - from traditional software products to open source - and then make the right strategic decision for your business.
Computer software - the basics
Change is one of the key determinants of business success. Managers who thrive are usually those who can introduce and exploit changes that present an opportunity, while defending against changes that present a threat.
It’s a useful exercise to undertake a “change audit” in your business. This involves listing the changes you’re currently facing, those you can see on the horizon, and those you’d like to introduce yourself.
The key is to identify unavoidable changes (such as technological change, or the emergence of a new competitor) so you can decide how to manage them. And you also need to identify desirable changes (such as a new product launch, or an overhaul of your management structure) so that you can work out how to bring them about.
When it comes to implementing change across your business, there are a few pointers to bear in mind. First of all, make change an incremental process, so that it’s easier to manage and so that you have the chance to tweak things as you go if initial phases aren’t as smooth as you’d have hoped for.
And don’t forget the role of leadership in introducing change. You need to act as an advocate with anyone who’ll be affected by the changes you’re proposing—whether staff, customers or suppliers.
Read about reorganisations, restructures and other major changes
One of the secrets of marketing success is to get as close as you can to your customers’ perceptions of the marketplace. If you can see the market through your customers’ eyes, then you’ll have a better chance of positioning your business to appeal to them.
Brand mapping is one market-research technique that attempts to provide this kind of customer’s-eye overview of the market. It involves taking consumer responses to questions about a range of brands and representing them visually on a simple scatter graph.
The key is to boil the analysis down to the two key attributes that will give your graph its x and y axes. For example, you might decide to set your graph up to plot “price” against “quality”.
This allows you to position the different brands on the graph on the basis of how consumers rate them. It’s a simple approach, but it can yield very clear and direct results - seeing a visual representation of how near or far your brand is from its competitors can be a very valuable exercise.
As with any market research exercise, however, the results produced by brand mapping can only be as powerful as the data that generate them. That means getting your consumer insights right and it means setting up as carefully as possible the two key dimensions that shape your graph.
Find out more about branding and market research