Doing business or filling in forms

Do Labour ministers have no idea at all what it is like running a business?

The latest bombshell from Margaret Hodge at the DTI is to make PLCs fill in a form proving that they thought about the environment and their employees while making their business decisions. Now thinking about your company's effect on the environment and society in general is important and those that do will ultimately perform better in the market as consumers become more tuned in to ethical business and adjust their purchasing accordingly.

The popularity of fair trade products, free range and organic food and duel fuel cars shows the change in consumer priorities. Getting companies to fill out forms will not change their behaviour, consumer power will.

If the DTI only planned to hit PLCs with this it would be bad enough, but it looks as though Hodge wants to spread this farce to privately owned companies, the bulk of which are one person operations. Time spent filling in forms is time not spent doing business, the last thing small businesses need is more hurdles to jump over.