Details of the changes to be introduced can be found on the Business Link website.  In fact this type of practical, albeit rather dry advice is one of the best elements of the oft criticised government service which provides information for businesses large and small.

It’s something that Business Link itself recognises.  As Doug Robinson head of content for the website says:

Clear guidance on regulations is one of the many benefits businesses get from using the site. We know that this is important information which users value, particularly this alert on new regulations.

Last week the Department for Business (BERR) was also plugging a Business Link website service as part of its ‘Employing People’ campaign designed to reduce the cost to business of implementing employment legislation.

The section highlighted allows employers to fill in some basic questions and create a standard employment contract from scratch.

Useful for the basics and indeed money saving – as BERR and none other than employment relations minister Pat McFadden says, businesses can save around £120 a time rather than going to external advisers.

I’m all for small businesses avoiding unnecessary costs, but was a little surprised to see a minister positioning a government body in competition with the private sector.

This piqued my interest particularly as I’d understood Business Link on the ground was going to increasingly become a central hub for sign-posting business to external advisers.

So I asked the question of the BERR PRs last week and only today got some additional briefing, accepting that there was a role for others to provide more detailed advice, and the following stone wall:

Unfortunately there is not a spokesperson we can put up for you to speak to

Unsurprising perhaps, but with Business Link’s reputation sometimes taking a hammering politically and from businesses themselves, it’s a little bemusing that they’re not more willing to engage. Particularly on a subject where I think they actually have a strong story to tell.

Although it’s with no relish that we report businesses failing to comply with environmental legislation, there is something oddly reassuring when even a well run, entrepreneurial beacon like Cobra beers gets it wrong.  It’s also an example of how even larger companies sometimes struggle to keep the right side of the law as the red tape burden appears to become heavier and heavier.

The particular piece of legislation that hit Cobra was the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations.  These regulations call for all businesses with an annual turnover in excess of £2 million that handle more than 50 tonnes of packaging each year, to be registered with the Environment Agency or a compliance scheme, which undertakes to fulfil the obligations of its members.

Further details of the scheme and packaging waste requirements can be found on the Environment Agency website.

The ICAEW’s Enterprise Survey now in its 11th year revealed that 36% of businesses believe that the imbalance between the needs of regulation and the growth of enterprise has deteriorated in the last year.

Hardest hit are the smallest businesses.  Changes in maternity payments and minimum wage rates amongst other changes in the last 12 months have contributed to the 76% of the total cost of implementation that now falls on these smaller companies. Nearly half (46%) of small businesses think that the imbalance between the needs of regulation and encouragement of enterprise has deteriorated. This compares to only 29% of larger businesses.

Despite this gloomy picture, and let’s face it all businesses will always moan about regulation, one in five companies have a target to achieve 30% growth over the next couple of years.  Indeed 40% of all businesses predict 10% growth in turnover over the next 12 months.