Government needs to 'drive down administrative burdens'

Date: 10th October 2008

An ongoing campaign to cut administrative burden for the UK's small business start-up sector has yet to see significant gains.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has stated that it feels the two-year-old Administrative Burdens Reduction Programme has not made immediate benefits to small firms.

A report by the NAO concluded that 40 per cent of small businesses believed that red tape and bureaucracy has worsened since the start of the programme.

A statement from the NAO said: "The government's initiative to drive down administrative burdens on business has raised awareness of regulatory reform and departments have begun to reduce some burdens.

"The next step is to deliver tangible benefits for businesses."

Several government departments have previously announced that they expect to cut administrative burden by a quarter by 2010.

In another recent study of small businesses, it was reported that the price of accountancy services had in fact gone down since the onset of the credit crunch.