WITH a general election looming,leading local businesses and business advisers outlined their priorities for the next government at a Round Table discussion.
The event was hosted by one of South Yorkshire's leading independent chartered accountants and business advisers Hart Shaw and The Star.
Chaired by The Star's Industrial Editor Bob Rae, the Round Table event heard the views of:
Andy Chaffer, Business Director of South Yorkshire Investment Fund.
Richard Larking, Partner and Head of Commercial Property at Ashton Morton Slack.
Paul Martin, Director of DKPM design and marketing agency.
Ron Whitlam, Senior Partner of commercial lawyers HLW.
Ian Goodall, Director of Aardvark Swift Recruitment.
Andrew Maybery, Senior Partner at Hart Shaw Chartered Accountants and Business Advisers.
Jim Hurley, Chief Executive of SIS Group.
Chris Sellars, Head of Corporate Finance at Hart Shaw.
Paul Hoyes, Director of Services Design Associates.
John Lee, Director of Bond Bryan Architects.
Chris Forrest, Head of Barclays Commercial Bank for Yorkshire and Humber.
Members of the panel gave their views on the state of the local and national economy and the effectiveness of the measures the current government has taken to stimulate the economy.
They looked ahead to the general election - to be held by next June - and revealed the actions they believe the next government should take to benefit business in general, and the Sheffield region economy in particular.
After the discussion, Hart Shaw's representatives, Andrew Maybery and Chris Sellars said they had many things to consider after a "very interesting and useful event for the firm."
The concerns raised, such as the simplification and rationalisation of existing laws and the need to strike a clear difference between public and private sector businesses, would prove invaluable to the way Hart Shaw deal with their clients.
They revealed that understanding and explaining employment legislation is, at the present time, excessively complicated. State involvement needed scaling back and radical changes needed to be made to ensure SME's and OMB's survive the current recession.
Andrew Maybery, Senior Partner at Hart Shaw said: "Sometimes less is more when i t comes to employment legislation and these laws need to be more specific to different types of industry. There needs to be a clear difference between public and private sector businesses as the needs of an SME are quite different from those of the public sector.
"We are not asking for a total overhaul of employment law but what is currently in place requires simplification, being made fit for purpose in the private sector. In addition tax legislation, which has become very muddled, and a tool for issuing credit must revert back to thesimplified system it was only 12 years ago."
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