Freedom day for businesses as red tape stripped back
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01 October 2012 - Department
for Business, Innovation and Skills
Hundreds of live music
venues will be exempt from licensing laws and small firms will benefit
from more flexible audit and accounting rules as thousands of
businesses are freed from unnecessary red tape today.
The reforms are part of a
wider strategy to tackle red tape, including the Red Tape Challenge,
which invited the public, business and the voluntary sector to give
their views on which regulations should stay, be improved, or be
scrapped altogether.
Today dozens of regulations will be removed or simplified, giving
businesses more freedom to grow.
Business Minister Michael Fallon said:
“From today businesses are freed from the red tape that holds them
back. We are ending over-the-top bureaucracy that stifles community
groups and pubs wanting to put on small events; scrapping pointless
rules about no smoking signs, and saving businesses millions per year
through more proportionate accounting rules.
“But this is just the start – we’ve set ourselves the challenging
target of scrapping or reducing a total of 3,000 regulations. I’m
determined to slim down regulation and make Britain an easier place to
start and run a business.”
Today sees a number of changes to benefit business, including:
• Giving over 100,000 more small businesses the flexibility to decide
whether or not their company accounts should be audited, saving firms
up to £390 million per year.
• Greater freedom for firms to determine the most appropriate set of
accounting rules for them.
• Removing regulatory burdens and costs from hundreds of venues
including pubs and clubs, making it easier to stage live music. Live
unamplified music performed in any location, and live amplified music
in on-licensed premises and workplaces for audiences of up to 200
people will no longer need a specific licence between 08:00 and
23:00hrs.
• Removing legislation that dictates the precise location and design of
no smoking signs in workplaces.
Brigid Simmonds, Chief Executive of the British Beer & Pub
Association said:
“This is a very welcome change, as live music is hugely important to
pubs and musicians, many of whom begin performing in their local pub.
“Ever since the two-in-a-bar rule was lost in the Licensing Act 2003,
the BBPA has been pressing for change. I would urge local authorities
to remove any unnecessary conditions on live music in pubs.
”We need to reduce the red tape burden, as pubs are at the heart of
local communities, vital for economic recovery and creating local jobs.”
Deborah Annetts, Chief Executive of the Incorporated Society of
Musicians said:
“We all know how important live music is to both working music
professionals and to those just starting out in their career. The
previous regime made it increasingly difficult to put on live music
gigs and saw all kinds of venues threatened with fines.
“Now, musicians will be free to earn a living and hospitals, schools
and other venues including pubs will finally be able to put on live
concerts without have to seek permission to do so from a council.”
In addition, targeted new measures will make life easier for
individuals and businesses by restricting cowboy clampers. New police
powers will protect the public from unscrupulous wheel clampers by
making it a criminal offence to clamp or tow away a vehicle without
lawful authority. The ban will end abuses by rogue clamping firms who
prey on motorists by charging excessive release fees, displaying
unclear signage and by resorting too readily to the towing away of
vehicles. The ban will save motorists about £55 million each year in
clamping charges.
And changes to the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 will reduce the
regulatory burden imposed by the current regulations, while
strengthening the UK’s overall anti-money laundering regime. The
changes, which will make the regime more effective and proportionate,
are expected to save firms around £3 million a year.
In further good news for small firms, lower legal costs will help
entrepreneurs protect their intellectual property (IP) rights. A new
small claims track has today been introduced to the Patents County
Court (PCC) to make it cheaper and easier for companies to pursue basic
IP disputes.
Notes
1. From 1 October, the largest employers will begin
automatically enrolling all eligible staff into workplace pensions, who
will have the option to opt out. This will help millions more people
save for retirement. Recognising that small businesses are operating in
tough economic times, the timetable for implementation has been
extended so that no small business will be affected until June 2015 at
the earliest.
2. A full list of regulatory reform coming into effect today is at: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/better-regulation/docs/o/12-p96b-one-in-one-out-fourth-statement-new-regulation.pdf
3. Alongside the drive to remove superfluous regulation, Government is
working to ensure that necessary regulations on business are enforced
more efficiently. Focus on Enforcement reviews are being carried out
across a number of sectors where aspects of the enforcement regime may
be imposing unnecessary burdens on business, making inefficient use of
public sector resources or hampering economic growth. The Focus on
Enforcement website is at: http://discuss.bis.gov.uk/focusonenforcement/iscuss.bis.gov.uk/focusonenforcement
4. The Government announced on 10 September that from April 2013 it
intends to introduce binding new rules on both the Health &
Safety Executive and on local authorities, that will exempt hundreds of
thousands of businesses from burdensome, regular health &
safety inspections. In future, businesses will only face health and
safety inspections if they are operating in higher risk areas such as
construction, or if they have an incident or a track record of poor
performance.
In addition, the Government announced it will introduce legislation
next month to ensure that businesses will only be held liable for civil
damages in health and safety cases if they can be shown to have acted
negligently. This will end the current situation where businesses can
automatically be liable for damages even if they were not actually
negligent.
5. The Government is taking radical action on red tape in a further
measure to boost growth and jobs in the economy. Through the Red Tape
Challenge process the Government is systematically examining some 6,500
substantive regulations that it inherited. The Government is now
committing to abolish or substantially reduce at least 3,000 of these
regulations and it will complete the identification of the regulations
to be scrapped or overhauled by December 2013. More information on the
Red Tape Challenge is at www.redtapechallenge.cabinetoffice.gov.uk.
6. On 20 September Michael Fallon also announced that a strengthened
independent function to champion deregulation when it hinders
innovative businesses was to be created. The independent Regulatory
Policy Committee will be asked by Ministers to investigate where
challenger businesses, seeking to enter new markets, are being
unjustifiably hampered by regulations or regulators and report
publically on their findings.
7. The Government's economic policy objective is to achieve 'strong,
sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the
country and between industries.' It set four ambitions in the ‘Plan
for Growth’ (PDF 1.7MB), published at Budget
2011:
• To create the most competitive tax system in the G20
• To make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance
and grow a business
• To encourage investment and exports as a route to a more
balanced economy
• To create a more educated workforce that is the most flexible in
Europe.
Work is underway across Government to achieve these ambitions,
including progress on more than 250 measures as part of the Growth
Review. Developing an Industrial Strategy gives new impetus to this
work by providing businesses, investors and the public with more
clarity about the long-term direction in which the Government wants the
economy to travel.
About the Author
© Crown Copyright. Material taken from the BIS Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Reproduced under the terms and conditions of the Click-Use Licence.
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Article Published/Sorted/Amended on Scopulus 2012-10-02 09:07:04 in Business Articles
