The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales has challenged the business sector to show “real leadership” and help to kick-start the UK economy, at the launch of a new economic forecast.

My thoughts on one of the ideas are:

 If I had a £ for every time I had heard “if every one of the UK’s 4.5m SMEs took on one extra person…” I would be a very rich man!

Seriously though, if the Government want this to happen then they should give the small businesses some money to help them over the first few month’s costs. And that is money direct to the business, not to big business, not to the dozen of business quangos which still exist, not to Local Enterprise Partnerships and not to Chambers of Commerce – direct to the businesses themselves.

And, at the same time, they should stop listening to big business, the lobbyists who represent (big) business and the small business organisations who once they step into the corridors of Whitehall forget what they went to say and who they represent.