Businesses need confidence and resilience to weather the storm

It would be very easy for businesses in Gloucestershire to face Christmas and the New Year with some trepidation. I have to say that Business West’s latest quarterly economic survey does paint a pretty gloomy picture.

We found that over half of the 350 businesses in the South West who took part in the survey report that political and economic stability has had a material impact on their business in the last quarter.

Uncertainty is a key factor for our local businesses-63 per cent of companies said this was a key concern. Worryingly, these figures have jumped by over 20 percentage points since this time last year during the depths of the pandemic.

Taxation is a major concern too with the Budget tax burden further increased on the back of the large-scale U-turns following the financial chaos in the wake of the Truss government.

In fact, the tax burden relative to the economy’s normal size has now reached a historic high. But for me, the key factor for business is confidence. That has also reached a historic low with only 6 per cent of those companies in our survey saying they were feeling confident in the nation’s economic prospects.

We found that 46 per cent of businesses are confident about their own prospects-that’s a decrease of almost 20 per cent since this time last year. So, the gap between confidence in their own business and that of the UK economy is the highest ever recorded.

Small businesses especially are the lifeblood of Gloucestershire’s economy. They need maximum support from government as they face what is going to be a very difficult start to 2023.

Confidence and resilience are the two watchwords that our businesses here need to weather the storm.