smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

Small companies in the UK spend almost one working week each month dealing with red tape.

A Forum of Private Business (FPB) survey found that it takes an average of 37 hours per month for small business owners to comply with regulation, coming to a total annual cost of almost £12 billion.

Employment law was found to be the costliest bureaucratic burden, creating a bill of £2.4 billion per year, while health and safety administration accounts for £2.1 billion and tax costs £1.8 billion.

The group says that the Better Regulation Executive, which is part of the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, needs to place small companies at the core of its agenda and look at how to reduce the amount of bureaucracy facing them.

Matt Goodman, policy representative at the FPB, explains: 'Our research shows that complying with red tape remains one of the major cost burdens facing smaller businesses, swallowing up valuable time and money that could be used more profitably elsewhere.'

A recent report from Eurochambres, the representative group for Europe's chambers of commerce, revealed that 1 trillion (£0.84 trillion) has been spent over the past 11 years by firms complying with regulation.

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