Small Business Jury Is Out On Brown's Budget

• Most small businesses say Budget will not help bottom line
• Nearly half see UK Business taxation as unfair

UK small businesses have been left in two minds on the implications of the Chancellor's swan song Budget. Less than a third (30%) think it will be good or fairly good for business, while 16 per cent feel that it would be fairly bad.

Most agreed that the Budget would not boost profitability. 62 per cent of Small Businesses said the Budget would make no difference to profitability, while 20 per cent said that the Budget would have a negative impact. Only one per cent of small businesses felt that the Budget would make them much more profitable.

The Orange Business Jury, conducted by Ipsos, polled 387 decision makers in Britain's small businesses to get their response to the Chancellor's 2007 Budget. The results show that while the Chancellor made concessions to improve international business, the UK's small business community may have been neglected. The results of the poll show that:

• On red tape, 46 per cent of UK small businesses said that the Budget has not done enough to help. Only four per cent thought that it had.
• On green issues outlined in the Budget, only 12 per cent of UK small businesses think that Budget initiatives on green issues will have a positive effect on their businesses
• 46 per cent said that the UK business tax system was unfair or very unfair

Technical details

The Orange Business Jury is a panel of over 970 small business owners, managers and decision makers working for companies with up to 250 employees. The panel is run by Ipsos. The survey is conducted using The 3rd Degree software tool, via SMS, and allows a fast response to issues as and when they affect the small business community. The study was conducted on the 21st March. The response rate was between 54% and 40% for the questions asked.