SMEs 'overlooked' in budget

The majority of small businesses believe that this week's budget announcement will not help the bottom line, research conducted by Ipsos MORI has found.

The survey of SME decision makers, commissioned by Orange Business Services UK (OBS), showed that just 30% of respondents believed that the budget will be good for business, while 16% said that it would be "fairly bad".

Almost two thirds of firms said that the reforms would make no difference to profitability, while around a fifth claimed that the budget would have a negative impact.

Just 1% said that the budget would help them increase profits.

Many organisations representing small business had called for reductions in red tape ahead of Gordon Brown's announcement; though following the speech, 46% of firms said that the chancellor had not done enough to simplify complex regulations.

Almost half or respondents said that the UK tax system was unfair.

"Whilst we certainly recognise the chancellor's commitment to improve the UK business environment more generally, our poll shows that small business may have been overlooked in this budget," said Neil Laidler, vice president of OSB.

"The research shows that the burden of red tape continues to be the biggest bug bear for the UK's smaller businesses. Despite the best intentions to simplify the bureaucracy, most parties recognise there is still a long way to go."