Thousands of UK businesses will be released from reporting requirements and other regulations in the future following an announcement by Prime Minister Liz Truss on Sunday, 2 October, 2022. It is part of the government’s plan to boost productivity and supercharge growth.

Currently, small businesses are presumed to be exempt from certain regulations. However, many medium sized businesses – those with between 50 and 249 employees - still report that they are spending over 22 staff days per month on average dealing with regulation, and over half of all businesses consider regulation to be a burden to their operation.

The Prime Minister has announced plans to widen these exemptions to businesses with fewer than 500 employees for future and reviewed regulations, meaning an additional 40,000 businesses will be freed from future bureaucracy and the accompanying paperwork that is expensive and burdensome for all but the largest firms.

The exemption will be applied in a proportionate way to ensure workers’ rights and other standards will be protected, while at the same time reducing the burden for growing businesses. Regulatory exemptions are often granted for SMEs, which the EU defines at below 250 employees. However, the UK government is free to take its own approach and exempt businesses with under 500 employees.

The changes were applied from Monday, 3 October, 2022. The government will also look at plans to consult in the future on potentially extending the threshold to businesses with 1,000 employees, once the impact on the current extension is known.

The UK government says that this is the first step in a package of reforms to ensure UK business regulation works for the UK economy. The reforms will harness the freedoms the UK has since leaving the EU to remove bureaucratic and burdensome regulations on businesses, while streamlining and making it easier for them to comply with existing rules, ultimately saving them valuable time and money.

Photo: Slashing red tape.