​Celebrating 50 years of representing great SMEs

It’s a series of fine judgements which, balanced well, might keep the faithful onside, but which equally has the potential to alienate, as happened fifty years ago when Chancellor Denis Healey faced into the annual challenge and decided to introduce Class 4 National Insurance contributions. These represented an additional tax burden on the self-employed and SMEs, and his fateful decision saw small business owners come together and galvanise like never before.

Stung by the unfairness of the measure, entrepreneur Norman Small wrote a letter to the newspaper and invited anyone affected by the new tax to attend a meeting in his home town of Lytham St Annes. Enough was enough, and Norman proposed forming an organisation to promote the voice of the self-employed. Similar meetings took place around the country and within less than a year the National Federation of Self-Employed had a membership of 25,000 with 200 new members joining every day. From these remarkable beginnings – where individuals banded together to challenge the actions of government - the organisation evolved into the Federation of Small Businesses, becoming the largest business lobby group in the UK; a position it still holds today as it prepares to mark its half-century anniversary this year.

Having come together to overturn an unpopular and unfair government policy, these business owners then considered what else could be achieved by continuing to work together. This led to the creation of the two key pillars that FSB continues to provide today in supporting self-employed, small and medium businesses owners. The first is to level the playing field with big businesses, by providing ‘back office’ advisory services through specialised employment helplines, legal services, tax services, and much more – twenty four hours per day, seven days per week, as the need for support amongst our most entrepreneurial people isn’t confined to a neat ‘9-5, Monday to Friday’.

The second pillar has its roots firmly in the vision that Norman Small set out fifty years ago – tens of thousands of businesses coming together to challenge government and lobbying to improve the business environment. This continues to see influence brought to bear, whether to get a fairer deal from the Chancellor, to maintain Small Business Rates Relief, to get better tailored support for SMEs to export, to get the right support during the Pandemic, or to highlight the problems caused by the NI Protocol.

Uniquely, it is the business owner who joins FSB, not the business itself, so it is those people who risk their own capital to pursue their vision who are the heart and soul of the organisation. Many members joined as owners of start-up enterprises, but are now at the helm of major enterprises employing hundreds of people, so the role of FSB cuts right across the entire economy.

Aside from the support and advisory services and lobbying, FSB also seeks to promote a greater awareness and understanding of the importance of business to a vibrant society. SMEs in Northern Ireland employ more people than all larger businesses and the entire public sector combined, so it is vital that the option of starting and growing a business remains high on the list of choices for people from all walks of life. The business ‘birth’ and ‘death’ rates chart the number of new ventures that start each year, offset by the number of business closures – whether because of retirement, merger, insolvency or other causes. The business ‘death’ rate is around 10%, so we need to see around one thousand new businesses start each and every month in Northern Ireland just to keep things ticking over. That’s quite a challenge.

To help highlight the importance of businesses in our society and celebrate their successes, a number of annual awards take place, including FSB’s own Celebrating Small Business Awards which open for entries this week. In addition to the NI awards and those in other UK regions, category winners will be invited to the UK Grand Final which, with a very direct link back to FSB’s origins half a century ago, will be held in Blackpool where Norman Small chose to locate the very first office that was opened to support those early pioneers of business lobbying.

Don’t miss the opportunity to nominate your own business or that of someone you admire, to help celebrate these visionary, risk-taking entrepreneurs – you don’t even need to be a member of FSB to enter the awards!