BCC: End crime against businesses

The British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) has released a new report highlighting the cost of crime against businesses.

Figures reveal that the cost of crime against UK companies currently stands at £12.6 billion annually, a 20 per cent increase since the organisation's last survey in 2004.

The BCC's director general, David Frost, is urging the Association of Chief Police Officers to make criminal activity against businesses one of its "key performance indicators".

According to the BCC's report, around 59 per cent of UK business owners have experienced at least one criminal incident over the last year, with 24 per cent of company's reporting damage to their vehicles.

Mr Frost claims that business crime is damaging economic growth and says small firms are the "lifeblood" of local communities.

"This survey has laid bare the growing cost of business crime and exposed some fundamental flaws in the way business crime is handled by the police. The result of these flaws has meant increasing numbers of businesses are losing confidence in the police's ability to address their concerns about crime," he comments.

The BCC currently has 56 chambers of commerce across the UK.