By Paul Wareham, North West Policy Representative, Federation of Small Businesses
The fourth quarter of 2021 was another challenging one for FSB North West members – with confidence dipping into negative territory for the first time in 2021.
But resilience and determination is evident. Investment intentions for the North West remain positive going into 2022, with the majority or businesses hoping to grow moderately or indeed rapidly over the next 12 months. In addition the outlook for future gross profit looks marginally improved, which shows businesses in the North West are well placed to drive a post Covid economic recovery.
In order to do this North West businesses need the confidence from Government to be able to plan. Supply chain issues, high inflation and further taxation are playing on the minds of small businesses. Increasing the small businesses rates relief ceiling to £25,000 would take 200,000 more firms out of this regressive tax.
The National Insurance ‘Jobs Tax’ in April will disincentivise many small firms from growing – and so an increase in the Employment Allowance would provide some welcome support.
The wider National SBI study of more than 1,200 business owners finds that close to one in three has seen late payment of invoices increase over the last three months, with a further 8% experiencing other forms of poor payment practice. Only 6% say that a change in payment terms has been agreed over that period. As a result, approaching one in ten (8%) say late payment is now threatening the viability of their business. 2022 needs to be the year that the scourge of late payment stops.