UK Business Barometer

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The 21st UK Business Advisers Barometer Survey asked for views on EU enlargement, the quality of the postal service, credit as it affects sales and orders, recruitment, changes in the Telephone Preference Service and Continuing Professional Development.

131 Business Advisers responded to this Survey.

Survey Findings

Since 10 new countries were admitted to membership of the EU on May 1st 2004, we asked questions around the theme of the impact on the businesses that panellists advise.

The opinion of Businesses on how the level of competition for them might be affected was also sought in the parallel survey, the UK Business Barometer Survey (UKBAB). Less than 5% of Business Barometer panellists, and a smaller percentage of Advisers thought it would highly affect businesses. A total of 64% of UKBAB and 66% of UKBB respondents thought it would not have any effect, or would affect businesses only very slightly.

Recently there has been some strong reaction through the media, to poor performance records by the Royal Mail in terms of timeliness of deliveries achieved and post lost en route. The debate provided the opportunity to include questions on the topic in this month's survey. Firstly, well over half of both Advisers and Business respondents agree that quality has suffered in the last year, with 70% of Advisers and 64% of Businesses saying that it has worsened or worsened significantly.

Secondly, 40% of Advisers and 36% of Businesses say that the incidence of undelivered and lost mail to their businesses has increased over the last year, although 34% of both say this was unchanged and 23% of Advisors and 28% of Businesses say that they have not experienced undelivered or lost mail to date.

On May 6th 2004 the Bank of England announced the third interest rate rise since November 2003. It was also announced recently that credit card debt in the UK is at its highest ever level. Although this has helped to sustain consumer spending in the recent past, the burden of debt repayment has increased and the question this gave rise to was whether, with this combined national position of higher interest rates and higher debt levels, businesses would be likely to feel an impact on their sales.

Most responding advisers and businesses do not foresee any change in sales or orders over the next year, although 19% of Advisors, for their clients, and 18% of businesses, expect a downturn, while 12% of Advisers, for their clients, and 20% of business expect an upturn.

Respondents to the Business Barometer were asked to what extent they find themselves recruiting graduates for what might previously have been non-graduate posts. Only 1% of BB respondents out of those who found this question applicable, found this to a high extent, with 25% moderately highly, compared to 5% and 10% respectively from the BAB. Those who don't find this at all amounted to 31% from the BAB and 44% from the BB, again after adjusting for those who are not applicable.

The Telephone Preference Service is being extended from 25th June 2004 to incude registered businesses, however 60% of respondents were not aware of this:

In addition, 60% believe that less than 25% of their clients are aware of the impending TPS changes, but 30% don't know, leaving 10% who believe that between 25% and 100% of their clients do know about it.

In view of the fact that so many Advisers were unaware of the changes and that therefore little can be known about the awareness of their clients, it is not surprising that a relatively small percentage think that the impending changes may be an issue for their clients. 2% think it will be an issues to a high extent with 12% thinking it might be to a moderately high extent.

The findings of both the UKBAB and the UKBB surveys for May 2004 are given for comparison: the identical question was asked and although 36% of both responded with 'don't know', 50% of the remaining BAB respondents and 46% of the remaining BB respondents believe that the extension to Telephone Preference Service effects will be either negative or significantly negative upon entrepreneurial activity.

A question in a previous survey explored whether employers asked about qualifications when employing Advisers, and it was found that a high percentage did so. The response to this question is consistent with that earlier finding and shows that qualifications are important in this field. 60% of responding Advisers need their professional qualification and/or accreditation to gain work to a high or moderately high extent, while 10% say they don't need them at all. The remaining 30% fall in between.

As Advisers, part of the professional approach is to stay in touch with new developments and in line with current standards. Therefore it is important to be able to undertake Continuing Professional Development every year and for 50% of respondents it is very easy to comply with the requirements to do so. However 6% find it impossible and 44% only find it occasionally possible.

There are a number of ways in which CPD can be achieved, and the outstandingly most popular is by seminars and workshops, with 55% preferring this method. 19% preferred work-based CPD accreditation and 16% were most prepared to carry out study on their own. Only 1% liked on line courses best.

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

I find CPD impossible as regional meetings do not seem to cater for the needs of the self employed (we need to turn down a day's pay to attend) or of childcare (meetings always cut into 'taking to school' or 'picking them up' time. So I'll never be able to upgrade to member ( of IBA) via time spent attending meetings but I have an MBA, am SFEDI accredited and have over 60 client meetings per month!

CPD - will find it very difficult to meet IBA approved CPD requirements this year without a conference.

As a new member of the IBA my answers to the later questions are not based upon experience yet. Regarding the question about the value of qualifications, I must stress that evidence of practical experience is paramount.

I feel that the survey itself highlights areas that we as advisers should explore, i.e. Telephone Preference Service. However one comment that I would like to make on CPD is that it is far too prescriptive, I attended several seminars and courses over the past year that are not recognised as CPD yet were extremely relevant both to my clients and to myself.

CPD and 'accreditation' questions form part the never-ending debate on the ever-increasing diversity of assessment procedure and qualifications. The constantly shifting brokerage landscape - from TEC to LSC, from Small Firms Service to SBS, Business Link to RDA's - reflects undulating and sometimes unforgiving policies and politics. NVQ's, TDLB's, SFEDI, Membership of professional bodies, even a Chartered Institute being mooted. Perhaps a question or two on this might prove illuminating.