The government has announced that thousands of the UK’s fastest-growing businesses will be released from reporting requirements and other regulations in the future, as part of plans aimed at boosting productivity and supercharging 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 changed threshold has been widened to businesses with fewer than 500 employees for all new regulations under development as well as those under current and future review, including retained EU laws. 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 government says 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”.
But the Trades Union Congress said it believed this would see businesses with fewer than 500 workers no longer required to report on gender pay gaps and executive pay ratios. Frances O’Grady, the general secretary, said: “Make no mistake. These changes represent real threats to workers.
“Obligations on businesses which were put in place to help improve the lives of working people, like reporting on gender pay gaps and executive pay ratios, are set to disappear for employers with under 500 workers.
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