Roger House

FSB want to lessen impact on small business

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has written to all local authorities across Kent and Medway calling on councils to undertake, as part of their 2012/2013 budget, an impact assessment before imposing higher charges and licence fees on their small businesses.

Local authorities are currently adding the last touches to their budgets will will be presented in the coming weeks.

These charges are certain to be targets for cash generation but the temptation to use local small and micro businesses as a source of income must be resisted. At the very least, local authorities must introduce a rigorous impact assessment regime to ensure options are considered and fully-informed decisions made by our councillors says the group.

Such assessments should consider the cumulative effect of charge increases, rather than viewing each one in isolation. This must reveal the effect such changes have had, or will have, on local businesses to quantify and justify that there will be an overall net gain to the local community.

Roger House, FSB Chairman for Kent and Medway said: “With the decisions made by local authorities when setting budgets having such a major impact on the local economy, especially in the current economic climate, the FSB has written to the Leaders and Chief Executives of Kent’s county, unitary and district councils to ensure that their budget will not undermine the sustainability of local small businesses.

“Whether it is the cost of car parking in a town centre, a statutory licence or the charge made for submitting a planning application there is an impact on the local economy from that charge and the FSB is keen to work with local councils to keep those costs as low as possible to support local firms.”