Small business: Big impact 

When the Small Business Plan was launched on 31st July a line in the Exec Summary stood out for me: 

‘Accelerating SME growth by just 1% a year could deliver £320bn to the UK economy by 2030.’ 

Wow, I thought. Does this mean that what feels like a viable amount of growth of an additional 1%, contributed by every small business, means the government would make up more than enough to cover costs, and some? Well, it seems it does. 

Achievable growth 

To put this into context, if you are generating £40,000 per annum in your business, growing by 1% is a new contract worth £400, if you’re delivering £400,000 in sales, it’s an extra £4,000 and if you’re on annual turnover of £4 million, it’s an extra £40,000. You get the idea. It feels like a viable amount of additional growth at each respective business stage. 

How the government will help 

The UKs entrepreneurs and small business owners are dynamic, innovative and resilient. But this additional 1% growth is also dependent on getting the right support. The government is on hand to play its part by: 

• Opening up opportunities: via access to contracts, markets, finance and new tech tools. There is work underway to support more small firms to sell to the public sector, export to the world, raise funds from British Business Bank, and harness the productivity gains by embracing AI. 

• Reducing the burden: you want to be free’ed to make the most of these opportunities and that will be delivered through the work of my own Office on addressing late payment, plus efforts underway to cut the regulatory and admin cost to business by 25% which you can see in projects such as the Single Log-in. 

Through these weekly newsletters, I will continue to keep you updated on government moves and measures but what remains a constant is the support and advice available to boost growth; from Help to Grow: Management and the Business Growth Service through to ample private sector provision with accelerator programmes, grants, peer networks and more. 

Wouldn’t it be amazing if Government and small businesses came together to deliver this additional 1% growth to help balance the books.