It should be a priority for all politicians to support the development of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). They are the lifeblood of our economy.
Businesses, large or small, face similar problems but the major difference is the limited resources available to the small business owner. SME owners struggle to manage existing red tape and cumbersome employment laws while trying to make a profit. Inevitably, crucial areas such as research & development (R&D) and innovation are seen as a further cost or burden, rather than an opportunity.
I have first-hand experience of running a small business as both I, and my wife, have owned enterprises. I understand the pressures. The long working hours place huge pressures on all aspects of family and social life. Our businesses couldn’t afford to employ the experts so readily available to the multi-nationals. When faced with a problem ‘you’ had to solve it. Time off for sickness wasn’t an option.
SMEs are also challenged by the rapid technological and other market changes within their industry. Upgrading equipment can be difficult when faced with increasing rent and rates costs while constantly battling to maintain a healthy cash flow. All too often the SME owner will hear “the cheque is in the post” or will be hit with productivity problems through employee sickness. Each of these costs is much more critical to the small manufacturer or retailer than to the leading brand name.
Northern Ireland needs to encourage private sector growth. The economy needs a generation with an entrepreneurial spirit. However, with such pressures and limited fiscal easement for SMEs why would our brightest young people consider self-employment? Why would they take the risk when they can have secure careers within the public sector? Through offering more adequate and realistic start-up support, I believe those with an entrepreneurial spirit would be more motivated to deliver the sort of success we consider essential to our future economic well-being.
Northern Ireland is an SME economy, and SMEs hold great expectations from the newly devolved Assembly. They want to see delivery of policy which results in a potential workforce with greater literacy and numeric skills. The Federation of Small Businesses has already highlighted this issue as being a foundation stone which is needed if economic success is to be attained. Through a multi-agency approach many necessary government policies, which regulate businesses, could be reviewed and harmonised so as SMEs do not have to communicate the same piece of information to several different agencies. This would bring greater efficiencies for government and also for businesses.
Applications for financial assistance, to support agreed business projects, are seen to be more complex than necessary. As a public servant, I understand the need for accountability. However, companies are discouraged from making applications by a wall of bureaucracy. The taxation system is excessively complex with employers being asked to take on collection and payment roles that, arguably, should be the responsibility of a government Department. Employers’ need a greater role in developing skills programmes that more adequately meet the demands of industry sectors. Having to provide basic skills training to already college trained vocationally qualified new employees is costly, time consuming and an overall drain on limited resources. The R&D tax credit system should be made small business friendly.
Small business owners and managers have been constantly stretched by multinational competition, banks and, during the decades of direct rule, by government. Thankfully, we now have devolution, and I know that my DUP colleague Nigel Dodds, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment, is fully committed to reducing bureaucracy and developing a skills-based entrepreneurial economy. At last, the economy is being given the profile it deserves, and I am optimistic that we can now create an environment in which SMEs can prosper and grow.
