Are you being served?

By Amanda Vigar, Managing Partner, V&A Bell Brown LLP

I have since May this year been ‘Judge’ of my very own West Yorkshire Business Jury (www.businessjury.co.uk), which, as I’m sure you can imagine, has been great fun! The jury is a bit like a peoples’ panel, but for business, and is made up of twelve entrepreneurs who are polled on a quarterly basis for their opinions on a topical subject. We’ve had two judgements so far: a ruling that the high street is dead, but not beyond resurrection, and that standards of customer service are in meltdown.

Given that the jurors are intelligent people who care about the communities they live in, they offered solutions. The first was to encourage more artisan and boutique type outlets to tempt people away from their keyboards and to enliven our dying high streets.

You may have read about my ruling on the ‘falling standards of customer service’ in The Examiner earlier this month. The majority verdict was that standards of customer service are in freefall. Dire levels of customer care have, for some time, been a real bug bear for me.

Unlike a typical Judge, I am also a member of the West Yorkshire Business Jury, so I can both comment and give a verdict! Not only are standards slipping, they are close to being non-existent. You only have to walk into practically any shop on any high street to be met by grim-faced shop assistants who wouldn’t know proper customer service if it hit them in the face. Nowadays (and sorry for sounding like an old so-and-so!) customers are invariably treated to a grunt and a look of complete and utter disinterest when being served.

For too long, the poor customer - and it is all too often the older generations who pick up on poor customer service, arguably because they’ve been used to better – has been on the receiving end of bad service. As a nation, no wonder we are increasingly staying put in the comfort of our own homes to indulge our shopping habit online.

So, what can be done aside from avoiding the high street altogether?

One of our business jurors, Dot Goodhall, President of the Huddersfield-based neurological charity The Nerve Centre, says: “The retail sector in particular should really be looking at initiating a root and branch audit of their customer service procedures. Customer service assistants are the public face of a business, so it is vital that the friendliest and most polite attitude is presented.”

'No to business bashing!' says Business Battle-axe

Amanda Vigar, Managing Partner of accountants V&A Group, which has offices in Holmfirth, Darlington and Peterborough, has welcomed Prime Minister David Cameron’s clarion support for entrepreneurs in his Conference Speech.

Amanda Vigar, the Business Battle-axe (http://businessbattle-axe.blogspot.co.uk/), said: “Business bashing has become all too normal a game for some members of our political elite. Increasing taxation is not the way forward nor is wrapping our businesses up in increasing levels of regulation or bureaucracy, which is coming in ever greater bucket loads from the Brussels gravy train!

“Small and medium sized businesses are the very life-blood of our economy and creating the environment, or the ‘land of opportunity’ as Cameron has put it, to support them, is absolutely vital to our recovery. Profit, job and wealth creation and tax cuts are not elitist words but are crucial to our economy. Businesses employ people, put wages in peoples’ pockets and help us to buy things, which all gets the economy moving again! To punish businesses by raising taxation and stifling them with more bureaucracy, particularly at a time of fragile recovery, is total and utter madness!”

Amanda added: “The Coalition is not perfect and still has a way to go before getting the economy firmly back on the right track, but at least there is a mood of positivity when it comes to backing and not blasting business!”

Big fanfare but "shares for rights" is a dog's dinner of a policy!

By Amanda Vigar, Managing Partner, V&A Bell Brown LLP

There was a lot of brouhaha in the spring about ‘shares for rights’ recommendations by a lesser-known ‘governmental advisor’ called Adrian Beecroft. Those proposals, widely derided at the time, have this month snuck into law.

The general idea is that Shares for rights would offer business start-ups some degree of deregulation. In return for losing certain rights and protections, including unfair dismissal, statutory redundancy pay and the right to request flexible working, employees are offered shares worth between £2,000 and £50,000.

It all seems fine and dandy in principal but how many start-ups are able conjure up shares to the tune of several thousand pounds at the very least? How big a slice of their business would they need to give away to make this even possible? 

Imagine the bureaucracy! It seems almost as if a new admin post will have to be created simply to deal with all the extra work. It all seems a bit like a modern-day serf’s contract and a questionable way to ‘bribe’ workers into keeping quiet if they have a grievance. 

Unsurprisingly, small businesses have showed a considerable lack of enthusiasm. A consultation by the business department showed the policy had full support of fewer than five out of 209 businesses asked to respond. Only a “very small number” said they were interested in taking it up. 

I can’t remember the last time there was such a scheme where there are so many unanswered questions. What happens when the share price plummets as well as rises? What happens when an employee has a genuine grievance? Are disgruntled employees able to go to the European Court of Human Rights to plead their case? I bet they are! 

Now that is has been implemented (as of September 1st) how many employees are likely to go for it? The idea is of course to foster more of a stake in a business, with all the productivity and motivational gains that should result. However that’s in an ideal world and we are most certainly not living in a perfect world. In fact, I can’t help asking if the people who dreamt up this scheme have ever lived in the ‘real’ world! 

Unfortunately, as a nation, we are not born entrepreneurs. Mr or Mrs Average will not take the inherent risk of giving up something tangible in the form of rights for something more uncertain in the form of shares. Only time will tell if this new scheme is the expensive white elephant I expect it is!

Now students bear the brunt of nonsensical HMRC rules

By Amanda Vigar, Managing Partner, V&A Bell Brown LLP

It really does beggar belief that already hard-up students are now in the firing line of yet another HMRC mess. It is summer time and thousands of young people up and down our land are earning a little extra to tide them through their next academic year. The earnings will help pay for mounting tuition costs, books and other course-related material, board and lodging and other ‘essential’ student living expenses…

Now, these hard-working students are faced with the nightmare of having to claim back income tax taken from their wages. They will no longer be able to fill in a simple form to exempt them before their money is taken, but will have to ‘apply’ to HMRC to have their money refunded. Previously, the P38 (S) form, now scrapped, prevented 20% income tax being deducted automatically each month from students, most of whom will earn less than the annual tax-free personal allowance of £9,440. This means anyone earning more than one 12th of the annual allowance each month - or £786 – could well be subject to tax at source.

These new rules are utter madness and will cause much unnecessary worry and hardship among our young people. It’s yet another example of HMRC bureaucracy left to run riot where people are being asked to fill in yet more forms to claim money back that is rightfully theirs. I am already seeing cases where students, who are not the wealthiest section of society by any means, are facing increased financial pressure due to the time it takes to claim their money back.

It is unfortunate to say the least that these measures have been introduced at all. Students now more than ever need to plan ahead when taking occasional work over the summer and budget for not receiving all of their wages for quite some time.

To avoid any issues with getting money back, they should make sure they get a P45 when they finish their job. This will show their PAYE code, total earnings and the tax paid. If they do not intend to work for the rest of the tax year, and have stopped working for at least four weeks, they can claim a refund by filling in a P50, available from HMRC's website. If they continue to work part-time for the same employer during term time - say during weekends only - they should be given a P60 at the end of the current tax year.

Hands off our banks all you meddling bureaucrats!

By Amanda Vigar, Managing Partner, V&A Bell Brown LLP

In the air there is a spirit of meddling…I can feel it, I can sniff it out, so watch out all you politico bureaucrats who are considering putting a state straitjacket on our banks! Granted, the big high street names of our banking sector have not behaved in the best possible way, but there is still time to improve, and they are trying; bless them!

In order to counter all the negativity, many leading financiers are giving and engaging in society in a way they have not done for 20 years. They are ramping up their Corporate Social Responsibility schemes with greater and more highly publicised activity in the community, including measures to address ‘financial inclusion’. Other examples of positive community engagement include high profile sport sponsorships from golf to the Premier League, plus other more CSR-led initiatives, including Spaces for Sports. This is a laudable initiative which has won several industry awards.

Yet, still there is a clamour for them to be more regulated, and to what end? Our political masters haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory over managing our economy over the last decade or so! The banks will retreat into their shells, en masse, if they feel persecuted by members of the public and, more seriously, by politicians of every political complexion.

The Vickers Report, which reported in the aftermath of the financial meltdown, said that the banking sector should be regulated to avoid future government bail-outs. The report says nothing about improving bankers’ decision-making, banking supervision, or money and credit policy. What proposals it does make will jeopardise UK banking by reducing its global competitiveness. It will also harm the UK economy by reducing the funds that the banks have available to lend to SMEs and homeowners. Unfortunately, this potentially very damaging report is still under active consideration and there are strong voices in support, particularly from the Left.

It’s simple common sense to insist that we cannot solve the banking crisis by impos-ing more regulation than our competitors overseas. We live in a global, not just a UK, economy! We should not be increasing regulation of our banks if it makes it difficult for them to lend and businesses to grow.

We have to stop vilifying banks and we need to make the moral case for banking and the free market allocation of capital. Our independent financial institutions are an essential part of our free market economy. Their ability to make decisions based on real-life customer-focused facts and figures, rather than a politically driven tick box agenda, is vital to our sustained recovery.

Multi-Nationals Are Not Tax-Avoiding Bogeymen

‘Tax avoiders’ beware – the Government is about to come down on you like a tonne of bricks. Last week’s G8 Summit at Enniskillen outlined measures to tackle the problem of tax avoidance by the ‘bogeymen’ of multi-nationals such as Google, Amazon and Apple.

In recent months, large corporations have come under the media microscope for the way they have – legally - reduced their liabilities. 

It was the thoroughly unhelpful and headline-grabbing posturing in the media that led to calls for a clampdown. Some forward-thinking companies such as Accenture have even moved their HQs from Bermuda to Ireland to show they are paying tax in the EU – just at a much lower rate than in the UK!

The G8 saw the assembled world leaders agree to further transparency on the sharing of tax information. The G8 leaders announced that they will draw up a template for global corporations to report to tax authorities where they make their profits and pay taxes around the world. The new powers will give governments a tool against tax avoidance by multinationals and will be particularly helpful to the governments of developing countries. So far, so fine and dandy; or is it? 

The problem is that these bogeymen in the multi-nationals are protecting their interests in a totally legal and above board way. Greater transparency is one thing, but this will naturally entail more bureaucracy and a further damaging slew of negative headlines.

At a time when the economy continues to be on its uppers, with unemployment standing at 2.51 million (I Googled that!), should we be knocking these companies for protecting their profits?  Don’t forget, those profits are paid as dividends and go to fund our private pension schemes!

Profitable businesses employ people. Large profitable businesses employ A LOT of people. Taking people off the unemployed list doesn’t just give politicians a warm fuzzy feeling when they get to announce improved statistics, it makes a huge difference to peoples’ lives and helps to keep tax down for all of us.

Employed people also spend more in the economy and this helps retailers and their supply chains to thrive. In turn, these retailers employ more people and more money by way of income tax and the VAT on goods sold, which goes into the economy.

Yes, there is a moral argument that companies shouldn’t “get away with it” by paying proportionally less tax than others. However, isn’t it more important to encourage job creation? The social benefits alone, which come from increased employment, are surely evidence that these companies are actually a force for the good and not multi-national bogeymen.

Professional contractors have vital role in any recovery

By Amanda Vigar, Managing Partner, V&A Bell Brown LLP

As the economy starts to emerge from the downturn, the value of professional contractors to the recovery is becoming more vital.

Accountants, lawyers, web designers, IT professionals are making a vital contribution to the economy by providing flexible and expert service.

It is these individuals and smaller firms that are helping to get UK business back on its feet. Over 21,000 of these are PCG members; PCG is the largest association of independent professionals in the EU and is showing year on year growth. My firm was awarded PCG Accredited Accountant status in 2007 and has retained that status ever since.  As a result we are seeing more and more of our clients winning contracts in both the public and private sectors.

The numbers of the professional consultants and freelancers is growing year on year. The number of self-employed people – often involving those who’ve launched their own enterprise following redundancy – has soared by 367,000 between 2008 and 2012 with the number of employees falling by 434,000 over the same period, according to the latest research from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Companies are engaging experts to take them through the minefield of new developments in technology, practice and legislation. Getting the right advice can be crucial to the survival of a company and the maintenance of its good reputation.

Contractors look after their own tax, National Insurance and pensions.  They don’t get paid for the time they’re not working because of holiday, sickness or indeed quiet periods. They know they have to perform every single day of their working lives and bring specialist skills.  All in all they are higher performing and don’t cost as much as an equivalent employee.

Businesses that engage PCG members also have that added confidence that the contractors are not blinkered and working in their own silos. They share ideas and knowledge in forums and at regular events.

The key lies in raising the profile of professional contractors as they become an even more vital part of the economy, particularly as we move towards a sustainable recovery.

Amanda was the proud sponsor of The Huddersfield Examiner’s Community Award for courage, which was received by Theo Carnie, who suffers from a rare bowl condition.