It's time to make good your business promises, Bibby Consulting & Support tells Cameron

The time for talking tough on removing the red tape that holds back business growth is over and the government needs to take swift and effective action, Bibby Consulting and Support has told the Prime Minister. The company specialises in employment law and health and safety legislation and managing director Michael Slade has written to the David Cameron, calling on him to make good his regular promises to help businesses thrive. Slade decided to act after Bibby Consulting & Support carried out a major survey of hundreds of businesses across the UK. The Bibby Employer Survey generated a massive response - but the findings were not good news for the coalition government. Slade has told the PM that the survey strongly suggested he had a considerable hill to climb in his attempts to reassure businesses he was doing all he could to help them. Two thirds of the 424 respondents - a huge majority – felt that Human Resource management was becoming increasingly complex. Frustration and real anger were expressed by companies over red tape and time spent on unnecessary matters rather than running the business. Senior business figures spoke of forever changing rules and regulations, a minefield of employment law, and crippling legislation. But the survey's finding that should most concern the Prime Minister, Slade said, was that businesses appeared to have little confidence that the current government would ease their legislative burden. Indeed, many complained of spiralling bureaucracy and said they were preparing themselves for an impending flood of new rules and regulations. In his letter, Slade reminded Mr Cameron that he often claimed, in opposition as well as in government, that he was keen to free UK businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs), from the shackles of unnecessary bureaucracy. And he pointed out that the PM said at the Conservative Party spring conference in March: "Make no mistake, I am an enterprise Prime Minister [and] this is an enterprise government. Everywhere we can we're breaking down the barriers to business growth. David Cameron spoke of gripping regulation and doing something about “bureaucrats who concoct ridiculous rules”. He insisted: “Believe me, we are taking them on." But, Slade wrote, his company's survey showed that business leaders continued to feel tied down by bureaucracy and lived in genuine fear of more and more red tape to come. "I appreciate that most current legislation was passed by previous governments," Slade says in his letter . "But what is very noteworthy about our survey is that businesses up and down the country do not appear to believe that your government is going to do anything to help them. I am sure you will be concerned to hear that." Slade has asked the Prime Minister to respond to these alarming findings. The Bibby Consulting & Support MD said later: "Day in, day out, we are working with companies to take away the headache of complying with all sorts of employment and health and safety laws. However, this survey shows that businesses are getting more and more concerned about the minefield of rules and regulations that hold them back. "We believe it is time the government stopped talking about tackling bureaucracy for businesses and did something about it to make it easier to employ people – and the sooner the better."

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