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the party of Government for the past 15 years, the Conservatives seem to point more to their past achievements rather than their future plans. This makes it rather difficult to separate their current efforts from Government statements and party policy.
Easing the audit burden Conservative campaign documents refer to a good record in deregulation. They plan to build on this with the Deregulation Bill. An example of this policy was the recent relaxation in the statutory audit requirement. Businesses with turnovers below £90,000 will not need an audit at all, and businesses with turnovers up to £350,000 will have audits replaced by a single compilation report.
Late payment Late payment is tackled by the Conservatives in the form of a consultative paper which looks at two approaches mentioned by the other parties: legislation for a statutory right to interest, and the introduction of a British Standard on late payment. Since 1992 Government contracts have had clauses specifying that main contractors must pay sub contractors, normally within 30 days.
Enterprise Investment Scheme
Access to funds is, as noted by the other parties, a common problem for small businesses. Several programmes designed to improve the situation were announced following last year's Budget. The first of these was to replace the Business Expansion Scheme with the Enterprise Investment Scheme, providing tax relief for individual investments up to £100,000 a year.
The second of these programmes is the introduction of Venture Capital Trusts, which will allow the pooling of savings for investment, but on a risk spreading basis. Thirdly, there is new Capital Gains Tax Reinvestment Relief where owners selling a business who want to reinvest in another small business can get relief from the proceeds of the sale. The Government has raised the threshold levels for Capital Gains Tax Retirement Relief from £60,0000 to Lim. Finally, it has improved the operation of the Loan Guarantee Scheme by increasing the maximum loan from £100,000 to £250,000, and the proportion of a loan that is guaranteed from 70 to 85%.
Business Links
Making services more accessible is a plank in Conservative policy. The Government estimates that 60% of businesses do not get through to organisations that can help them. To rectify this it is establishing a series of one-stop shops, called Business Links, which will provide help from the various private and public sector agencies.