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The sudden and dramatic collapse of Carillion has thrown into stark relief the whole system of outsourcing public contracts to a few large companies. Even before Carillion’s collapse, though, many experts were nervous that planning for crucial reform of the court system appears to be largely in the hands of these same giant contractors. Digitising the Courts The court system in England and Wales has never been so ove

Tax evasion and avoidance are big news these days, and most of us associate them with the multinational corporations and super-rich celebrities we read about in the news. But HMRC recently revealed who the biggest culprits are — SMEs. SME Tax Evasion HMRC estimates that they’re owed a total of £5.2bn in evaded tax payments, and of course those are only the debts they know about. Tax evasion, unlike tax avoidance, is

SMEs that rely on large companies as clients have always suffered from a power imbalance when it comes to paying bills, and the situation seems to be getting worse. It’s been estimated £266bn is being withheld from SMEs through late payment, and there are signs this has been increasing since the Brexit vote. Duty to Report All political parties are promising action, and the Duty to Report measures were introduced in

We’ve all read it over the past few months, banks, phone companies, and goodness how many other institutions have been hacked. Daily scams are becoming the norm; and every day seems to add to the problems small businesses are facing, myself included. I have written before about protecting your business with contingency planning and I make no apologies for repeating my concern. Remember to check this on a regular basi

You’d think that getting paid for work or sales would be at the top of the priority list for any company. It seems, though, that many SMEs are only too willing to write off any debt that presents difficulties. SMEs and Bad Debt Although they don’t get media coverage like the giants, SMEs are the lifeblood of UK business. Government research last year showed that more than 99% of the country’s businesses are SMEs, 1.3

Meet the permanent non-borrowers. They’re the businesses that won’t be borrowing money from external sources, such as the high street banks, to expand. You might argue that it’s one of the longer-lasting effects of the global crash. Whatever the cause, a majority of small and medium-sized enterprises now meet the definition of permanent non-borrowers (PNBs), according to the recently published BDRC Continental SME Fi