smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) must do more to inform small businesses of upcoming legislation changes, a leading industry figure says.

At the start of every year, DBERR publishes guidelines telling small firms of any regulatory changes set to come in to force on 1 April and 1 October.

The Department is also supposed to review new legislation and update businesses of any changes, yet Matt Hardman, campaigns manager for the Federation of Private Businesses, warns that this has still not happened in advance of October's changes.

'This is very frustrating for us and for our members. We represent 25,000 smaller businesses across the UK, and we want to remind and update them about new legislation coming into force on 1 October,' he says.

'The Better Regulation team, which is part of the DBERR, told us they would be publishing information on their website in the week of 16 July.

'But they are still not ready, and cannot tell us when they will be ready. This means we cannot accurately inform our members of legislation they will have to comply with on 1 October.'

Mr Hardman adds that businesses are especially in need of advance warning over some new laws concerning data protection and holiday entitlements which are set to come into effect this autumn.