UK Business Barometer

The January UK Business Adviser Barometer (UKBAB) survey questionnaire received 144 responses. It focused on the Euro, community / social enterprises, client optimism, pension arrangements, the impact of the Armed Forces mobilisation, incorporating as a Limited Company, the use of PR, selling via the Internet and customer feedback.

In summer 2003, the Treasury is expected to decide on whether the UK should adopt the Euro. 27% of respondents thought the Euro would helpful to their clients while 38% thought it would be unhelpful. The UKBB survey for January asked the question of small businesses themselves, and they were more upbeat in their responses - 40% thought the UK Euro would help their businesses, while 22% thought it would be unhelpful.

40% of advisers currently have clients who are looking at community / social enterprises. This area is regarded by 56% of advisers as sufficiently different from general business to warrant specialisation.

Looking to the economic future, although less than 1% of advisers say their clients are highly optimistic about the general economic climate, 2% say their clients are highly optimistic about their own immediate business prospects. A further 81% of advisers think that their clients are cautiously optimistic about their businesses, with 17% believing clients to be pessimistic. In the economy generally, advisers are split roughly 50/50 between those having cautiously optimistic clients and those with pessimistic clients.

Employer pension administration has received much attention with the introduction of the stakeholder pension. The majority (67%) of advisers believe their clients are not managing their employees' pension arrangements very well.

At the time the Survey was sent out only 1500 reserve forces had been called up. Half the advisers believed that the preparations for conflict would have no impact upon their clients, but 4% thought there would be significant impact and 46% expected a slight impact.

The Inland Revenue has said that the Budget 2002 cut in the corporation tax starting rate from 10% to 0% means that 150,000 small businesses no longer pay any corporation tax. 62% of advisers have found that a few sole traders have decided to become limited companies as a result, but 22% have not seen any such change. 17% of advisers have seen a significant number make the decision to incorporate.

Actively using PR to raise profile appears to be an activity undertaken sparsely amongst clients. 77% of advisers estimate that less than 25% of their clients do so and amongst the remaining 23% of advisers responding, less than 1% thought that more than 75% of clients were involved in this.

Selling via the Internet seems to be taking place, but mostly at a fairly low level. 10% of advisers report a high or relatively high extent, with 20% moderate and 66% some sales. Only 5% of advisers do not have clients selling via the Internet.

Advisers reported that although 22% of clients have a customer feedback system, 63% do not. However, when asked directly, through the UKBB, 47% of the small businesses surveyed said they had such a system and 53% said they did not. 73% of the business advisers feel that customer feedback is very valuable to their clients in maintaining competitive advantage, whereas from the UKBB the figure was 41%. The UKBB respondents had more graduation to choose from in their survey, and only 2% felt there was no value in customer feedback. 27% of advisers had clients for whom there would be no value in customer feedback. .

Views expressed are those of individual panellists and may not represent those of the IBA or the University of Nottingham.

Q6. How well do you think your clients are managing the pension arrangements for their employees?p>

(managing very well managing adequately not managing very well)

Re Q6 in Jan Survey, my clients who have to provide the opportunity for stakeholder pension to employees are meeting the requirements to provide access but the employees don't want it. Is this more a case of lost confidence in financial services.