Written submission from Lee Taylor (MPD0013)
Dedication
These writings are dedicated to those Small and Micro-Business Owners, Male and Female, who have hired people in good faith, only to find themselves doing the job themselves, paying monies to “Employees” who may never return, spending money and time to train a replacement member of Staff whilst not knowing if, or when, the original Employee will return, or all of those things.
It is done with the greatest of respect to those who have attended a small-business function, expecting a sympathetic ear and support, only for find that arena dominated by others chanting phrases like “Best Practice” and “Empowering Women” whilst ignoring provable economic facts.
Likewise, to all those who have subscribed to a “Business Support Organisation” which they expected to represent their interests at Parliamentary level, only to find that organisation politically correct, unresponsive to one of the biggest financial issues facing the Small and Micro-Business Community, and not even willing to educate its membership as to the costs and pitfalls they may face as a new Employer, nor to teach them that despite the fact the primary objective of a “job” is an exchange of capital and labour, that fact is secondary to the “rights” of an Employee.
Finally, to all those Employers who have taken on an Employee only to find that, after a few small months, or less, they will be funding paid time off for Doctors visits and Yoga Classes (its true!!!), followed by a long, unspecified period of absence in which Holiday Pay is accrued enabling a non-returning Employee to collect a cheque upon departure (when they hardly arrived) and have still gone on to employ others - I salute you and the strength you have shown in the face of the siege on your right to spend your money to get a job done properly at the pace you, and your Clients, require.
Despite it being obvious that a Government of any political persuation, and its supporters, have no clue, no empathy and no understanding of the risks you take with your homes, guaranteeing loans and leases, continually battling with Government-created paperwork, directives, collecting and administering taxes (including Pensions for Gods Sake!!) for no recompense, and dealing with mediocre Employees of that Government and its agencies, you still “get back on the horse” when you fall off following a robbery.
Note:
If merely reading this Dedication has caused you to put a slap-bottomed grimace on your face and you are already “offended” (which is taken, not given!), then you are part of the problem for Small and Micro-Business owners, not the solution.
For we are people too, we have interests and families, and we are entitled, when we spend our capital to get a task done, to see that task completed, to understand what the cost will be, and to enter into a contract without there being hidden pitfalls, to ask questions before we enter into such a contract as to the suitability of the other party to fulfil that contract.
In too many cases we end up performing some or all of the task ourselves, or paying twice to get it done, and still being contractually obliged to pay money out to someone who was not fit for purpose.
The first requirement of any such Contract is, of course, turning up to undertake the allotted task.
Read this information, learn how to use a calculator to see the cost to Small and Micro-Businesses that you appear to favour and ask yourself, would I purchase a car that I still had to pay for after having only a few months usage whilst it was out of action? Would I lease a computer that I had to pay for despite it being in the repair shop for most of the term?
If you wouldn't spend your own hard-earned in that way, then you will understand where I, and numerous other business owners, some who feel unable to speak up due to political correctness, am coming from.
1. About The Author, Introduction and Setting the Ball Rolling….
The Author has been self-employed for over 20 years and during that time, has been the Employer of over 50 people. Given his experience, it was tempting to produce a cover for this pamphlet showing various politicans under the banner “Danger-Pick-pockets operate in this area”.
He has been through the peaks and troughs, the thick and thins of business and learnt the hard way that it is not just Death and Taxes that are a certainty, but also that the lot of a Small or Micro Business owner is never concurrent with the message that the Government of the day likes to project that they are small business friendly.
These texts are not written by a professional author (and therefore punctuation and grammar may not be what you would expect from a novel), nor designed to gain or lose the Author business, not to be politically correct (a pox on that!) nor an exercise in public relations.
They are written with a passion, from personal experience of complying with Government regulations in general, and having to deal with the agents of same.
The Author went the “family friendly” route in his business with flexible, term-time only working for some and discovered, to his detriment, that his opinion and experience were second-class within the premises that he personally guaranteed the lease for, and the business that he personally guaranteed the loan for.
Not only did successive Governments continue to impinge on the Employer-Employee contract, moving the goalposts in favour of the Employee, but expectations from Employees of things they were not legally entitled to, but that they perceived they were entitled to (such as a right to time off for sports day or inset days) formed as a result of this one-sided state of affairs.
The Author realises that, as a Heterosexual White Male, his status will be a triple word score for some attached to the “Womens and Equalities Committee” and he would like to take this opportunity to apologise for Slavery (despite missing it by several hundred years) and whatever else they may like to blame him for.
On the side of rationality, he requests they lower their shields of victimhood, deflate their Hilary Devey should pads and understand that the more you squeeze a Small or Micro-Business with cost, particularly exposing them to being wide open to “Maternity Fraud” (see later in these texts), the less chance they are likely to employ someone who may be able to fleece them in that way, or even to employ anyone else at all.
We constantly hear rhetoric about “if every small business hired just one employee…” etc etc from one side of Government whilst another part of Government, spurred on by their Masters in Brussels comes up with another half-baked proposal to deviate from that concept so alien to Politicians - the idea of hiring someone so that they can perform a job.
There appears to be an total misunderstanding from the establishment that without profits being generated, there will be no taxes to fund the follies of Politicians, including the circular route of giving money to pressure groups who then use those funds to lobby for more funds, and so the circle continues..
I will begin by posing the question to the committee that, if they are charged with bringing about equality, there doesn't seem to be any when it comes to paying the bills for Maternity related costs?
I will further ask the Committee to consider why the lives of Business Owners are second-class to those that they employ? This can happen by having to work long hours because an Employee they put in place to do a task (all too often Government paperwork!!) is off, yet again, due to some “right” or it can be financial due to having to pay such an employee, pay a replacement employee in addition, or even due to a lack of cash due to having to pay legal fees despite WINNING an Employment Tribunal.
SME Business owners can be classed as a minority, are people too, who is representing their interests?
2. The Parallel Universe: Attempting to Drag Small and Micro-Businesses Down to Government Levels of Inefficiency and Gold-Plated Benefits
Consider for one moment, the workings of Government compared to the manner in which a small or micro-business has to operate.
Government takes its revenues, generally under threat of imprisonment from those who may not even use many of its Services, who have little or no chance of recompense in the event of bad service or no service, and who will be faced to pay more taxes to pay out any financial compensation payable when Government Employees make mistakes. Compare that with a small business which earns its revenue based on the quantity, quality, and market price of its product or service.
When productivity, or Customer Service, is down in a Government department (including due to the fact that lots of staff are off due to some form of paid leave), Taxpayers simply have to “put up with it”. A Council or Benefits Office will simply put up a sign saying “come back tomorrow”.
If dealing with HMRC, a Taxpayer who cannot get through on the phone has little choice but to queue again tomorrow to avoid receiving a fine (generally out of proportion to any tax owed) if they are unable to file some form or another.
A Small Business however has to constantly offer a level or service or its Customers will simply go elsewhere. With the Internet and larger corporations, such as Amazon, offering increasingly high levels of Customer Service, Small Businesses are reliant on staff they employ to be present to maintain those levels of Service to survive.
Furthermore, despite Government claims, red-tape and paperwork are getting more complicated, with higher penalties for non-filing or incorrect paperwork. I have not heard of any Government Department allowing a Small Business extra time to file paperwork because, despite the best efforts of the Management to have resources to deal with Customers and Government paperwork, the staff they have are off on some kind of Government-sanctioned leave.
Given the fact that Government is less efficient, responsible for a huge amount of unpaid, unproductive labour within a small business, it is, quite simply, a nonsense that Government keeps conjuring up more types of leave, and more costs in respect of employees taking such leave, when, in many cases, its red-tape and paperwork is the prime reason that a business need Employees to be in attendance.
Many Small and Micro-Businesses do not have a “Legal Budget” or a contingency for this, that or the other. Yet they are being forced to Employ people who may go on to cost the more money than may be generated in work or productivity and may, after collecting their Danegeld, never return to the business.
This open-ended costing is further complicated when, for example, as happened last year, an ECJ ruling meant that overtime and commission had to be taken into account when calculating holiday. Because Holiday Pay is ludicrously payable to those on Maternity, Paternity and Sick Leave, this immediately increased the cost of those on Maternity to a Small Business.
I wonder how many on the Committee can comprehend that the more expensive you potentially make a particular group more expensive, the less chance they will be employed? ( I use the term employed loosely as it is arguable that someone absent more than short-term is employed at all!!).
3. The Primary Objective - Productivity over Reproductivity
If those on the Committee have any knowledge of running a Small Business, then I would request that you attempt to remember those days.
I will space the following piece of text out so that you may digest it, because it appears to be alien to so many in Westminster:
The Primary Objective of Employing someone is to get a task done.
Why do I feel the need to present it in this way? Because allowing someone to take a job where hours and activities are advertised, only to the change the rules immediately after they are employed due to some “right” is exactly what is being inflicted on small business owners.
For any Small or Micro Business, the prospect of Employing anyone, whether already an Employer or not is not taken lightly. This is for two reasons, firstly the business factors of whether there will be enough money to pay someone, whether the level of business will keep coming in to substain them and whether you could spend more time training them than dealing with the influx of business.
The Second fact is the level of exposure that an Employer may have post the commencement of
Employment.
I note that the Committee mention tribunals within their notes and it is important look at Employment Law as a whole, not just Maternity, in this regards.
Within the last 18 months, a Woman took a job in the Manchester area in a Call Centre with shift patterns which were advertised. Once the job was offered, the Woman stated, due to religious grounds, that she could not complete all of the shifts. The first considered her request but was unable to accommodate it.
The newly introduced costs of tribunal were not a deterent to her, I am unsure if her lawyer was no-win no-fee but she was reportedly awarded £16k, with nearly as much being awarded for “hurt feelings” as loss of earnings.
This ruling is relevant to your discussions because it illustrates that one person, who has contributed nothing to an Employer, can have rights that trump over everyone elses in the Company, not just the business owner.
The shift patterns would, no doubt, have been worked out offering all Employees equal time of at evenings, weekends etc and yet one person is entitled to the whole thing to be worked around them.
I will point out that Religion, like starting a family, is a lifestyle choice.
I use this example to illustrate that Small Business are wide open to this form of extortion, whether Religion, Hurt Feelings or Maternity, the fact that someone chose to spend their capital to get a job done is being given little consideration.
He, or She who pays the piper should call the tune, not have to walk on eggshells in their own business premises.
4. The Forgotten, Un-Acknowledged, Compulsory Double Contribution
I trust it is not too alien a concept to those on the Committee to point out the following:
- Many Small or Micro Business Owners own their enterprises 100%, thereby meaning the
capital contained therein belongs to them.
- You do not need to be making profits to be taxed. You simply need to be occupying a
property, making a purchase of something, or just filling your car.
- Small and Micro Business Owners are paying taxes twice-personally and business-wise.
- Tax is taken under threat of imprisonment-lest you “Public Servants” forget that.
What has that got to do with the price of fish you ask?
Those monies are going into the communal tax-pot. Among the numerous things that SME owners are paying for twice are:
- Gold-plated Maternity Packages in Public Bodies (no wonder the NHS is short of
funds!!!)
- Grants to “Working Families” Groups (Militant bunch with no clue about business, in my
experience)
- Government Contracts awarded taking into account “Diversity Quotas” which benefit,
among others, Women!
- Cancer care relating to Women when some Mens are neglected.
- Free Contraception
- Abortion
- Adoption
- Artificial Insemination
- Other Health Services related to Conception
The latter items listed, and no doubt there are more, all relate to having children. They can all be enjoyed by a Woman without a Man being required.
So you will see that, with the double funding of the above, that the Mums-net fraternity should be thanking small business owners, not conspiring with Government to think of more ways to screw them for more cash-the burden is already disproportionately shared.
Furthermore, this funding goes to ALL Women, not just those a business employs. I would put it to you that that funding is a pretty damn good double contribution, why would more funding be required.
On top of that, there seems to be a trend not to refer to the family related items above as “Family Planning” when that is exactly what they are. The chance for a Woman, with or without a partner, to Plan. If that doesn't scream “Lifestyle Choice”, what does?
That of course is not enough for Government, if a Woman is an employee, then the business will be paying nearly 14% National Insurance. Couple that with the Employees NI and we are talking nearly 26% of salary. It doesn't cover Sick Pay, Employers are being forced to provide pensions, so what DOES it cover?
I would suggest to you that with that level of compulsory contribution, it should be covering anything related to Maternity!!
5. The Faux Arguments
Everything about Government communication is generally arse-about-face. For example, Economic Management means borrowing money we don’t have to send abroad, controlled immigration means the complete opposite. Discrimination appears to mean getting paid more for doing less or even nothing, particularly within the Maternity Leave area.
When Government doesn’t want me to use so much energy, or not to send so much rubbish to landfill, it taxes the bills. Why does it seem to believe, in complete contrast, that applying compulsory tariffs to the Employment of Women will encourage me to employ more of them?
Nothing stinks of this more than the use of Female achievement to attempt to justify long-absences away from the coal-face doing something different.
For example, I would be the first to point out that England has the Rugby World Cup and it is the Women’s team who hold it (as not many Rugby fans appear to know that fact).
How did they win such a cup?
By attendance at the relevant time (in this case the match/tournament, in a business context when the business required them!) to perform the task they were contracted to do well. Those members of the team who were long-term absent, for whatever reason, could hardly claim the credit.
Much has been made of Victoria Pendleton’s transition from Cycling to Horse Racing. Would anyone expect her Cycling Team to pay her wages to ride Horses or give her the prize money?
Of course not-yet you would expect an Employer to pay monies to someone on Maternity Leave who may never return. That’s the same level of lunacy.
I have also heard some rather silly statements in my time (from those who don’t employ anyone!) which I will debug below:
Don’t you want to retain staff?
This was phrased to me like I had a choice in the matter which, as you hardened “screw the employer” types on the Committee will know, I don’t. When someone goes on Maternity Leave, I am stuck with them, whether I want them or not, whether their replacement was better, whether the market has changed after a period of up to 12 months and I don’t need them, Im stuck.
What about the cost of training staff?
In a worst-case scenario, an Employer can train someone who then clears off on Maternity Leave, train their replacement, and then train the original Employee when and if they return. 3 lots of staff training is hardly an argument to employ Women of child-bearing age now, is it?
“You need people to have children to pay your pension”
This is the most ludicrous reaction. Firstly because who knows whether or not there will be a pension when I get there in 20 or more years time. Secondly because I don’t need them more than other people so why should I pay more for their upkeep. And finally because any major party is compensating for that with their immigration policies!
This response came from a member of an organisation who I discovered afterwards received a large amount of taxpayer funding so you can see that my taxes are being used to fund those with no business sense to lobby for more regulations upon me.
Cant you fund Maternity Leave with it instead as opposed to creating an industry based around a “Victims Lobby”?
6. The True Costs
Even someone who has been involved with Employment Law for many, even I am amazed at the scope of the costs that a business can expected to foot. I would, again, point out to you that most small businesses do not carry a contingency fund for paying people who are not doing something within their organisation, and therein lies the problem.
Paid Time Off
I am all in favour of allowing those who are pregnant to use their holiday up to take time off for their appointments. You will remember that, in the early part of this Century, the Labour Government paid a large increase to GPs with no increase in service levels.
In my opinion, that was a failed opportunity to open up evening appointments to those who need them. After all, given Employers National Insurance contributions, Employers are funding the NHS more than the Employee so service levels are their concern.
I understand that there may be issues with the level of resources in such services which may or may not be due to immigration levels but the fact is, there is a raw deal here for Employers.
Yoga and Swimming
I recently discovered that a midwife can recommend a pregnant Woman attend such classes as above and the Employer has to give them paid time off. To attend Assuming the Government solves the power problems of the nation, Im assuming that such classes will continue to be held in the evenings.
Whilst I partake of some Yoga myself (to offset the rigours of dealing with Government, at least Dick Turpin wore a mask) and am aware of the benefits, no one pays me to attend. I assume that some policy-makers have attended too, how else would they get their heads so far up their backsides when making policies that affect small businesses?
Part-Timers
Many Business owners are amazed to find that they cannot insist that a part-timer visit attend their various appointments at a time when they are not working or at least at times when it is more convenient for the business so it will not suffer.
Holiday Pay
One of the most ludicrous payments to those on Maternity Leave is holiday pay. The person may not even return to employment so may be due a payment at the point they decide not to come back.
I did hear some political pygmy, called Nick Clegg or something, refer to cutting down on “unearned income” and I assumed this matter was being addressed, but to no avail.
Accrued Benefits
Should a business have to downsize in future years (inevitable given some of the policies successive Goverments pursue), time off on Maternity Leave counts for redundancy payments. This is a complete nonsense.
Even the current Government appears to be addressing this with Junior Doctors where those off wont get automatic pay increases. Money is not only in short supply in the NHS, it also does not grow on trees in small enterprises either.
Other Costs
There is an inherent cost to re-organising a business and/or the cost of not serving a Customer during those periods who may never come back again. This includes training, and re-training which, in many industries, carries a cost.
The fact that a job must be kept open for up to 12 months is a nonsense for any business attempting to plan.
Furthermore, should there be an occurrence of “Brexit”, there is an ever pressing need to allow small businesses to operate flexibly and to plan ahead. It is crazy that an Entrepreneur, whose business may employ other people whose jobs are equally as important as someone absent, can operate unhindered.
7. The Three Year Disruption
Whilst I have not included specific economic figures within these notes, (I am more than capable of doing so but every job is different in terms of wages, terms and training costs), it is a simple fact that a Maternity Leave can affect a business across three trading years.
How so?
Whilst not the complete year, the first portion will be due to time-off for medically based appointments (and possibly YOGA!!!)
Then, if someone takes a full 12 months, then that would be the second trading period.
And then we have the third period (if someone returns).
Firstly, there is the possible cost of retraining and then there is the matter of holiday pay. During a normal year, the amount of holiday someone got would have included public holidays.
Because there is a requirement to pay a years holiday pay, this (based on the legal minimums), would require 56 days holiday to be given. Lawyers inform me an employer cannot insist this is taken over a few years.
There is the disruption of 56 days but, because normally 8 of the 28 days would have been Public Holidays, the extra 28 days will need to be taken on what would have been working days.
So, as you can see, we are talking about a huge amount of disruption for an SME.
8. Maternity Fraud
You may wonder what I mean when I refer to “Maternity Fraud”.
Simply this: Someone taking a job knowing they are Pregnant, either secretly or an Employer, knowing an Employee is Pregnant, having to employ them even though there is no prospect of the job being done for any length of time.
Indeed, there are some jobs where a Woman of, say, 7 months pregnancy would not be able to do from the interview stage and yet the law says that she must be paid in full up until the date she would have left before getting all the entitlements mentioned earlier.
No Government, of any Party, can claim to be sympathetic to Small Businesses whilst allowing them to be wide open to this level of skulduggery.
You will note that much of the recent “Brexit” argument about benefits related to someone having to be here for a qualifying period before being illegible.
There should certainly be a qualifying period for any benefits (and they are benefits) you are expecting a small business to pay out in this regard!
9. In Summary
The information given to you in my previous pages shows you, categorically, that Small and Micro Businesses are being disproportionately forced to fund, and arrange their affairs around other peoples lifestyle choices.
I, and any other business owner, am more than capable of making an arrangement to give someone paid time off for whatever we decide, or to hold a job open for someone if we feel they warrant coming back.
Given the current levels of inefficiency and incompetence in Government, why would we expect anyone related to it to tell us how to run our enterprises?
My 20 years experience have taught me what my business requires. If I felt I was lacking confidence in a particular area, I would obviously hire someone with pedigree to advise me as opposed to anyone related to the Public Sector who quite possible got their position as part of some “Quota”, rather than old fashioned competence and success.
It is logical to assume, however, that, just as not everyone is suited to every job, not everyone will be wanted back, especially as time waits for no man or woman (unless it seems, you are on Maternity Leave).
So, to answer your question, Women are not discriminated against, it is their Employer who is. Particularly due to paying money for nothing, being dictated too in their own business premises and having their own spare time and families disadvantaged in favour of those who should work for them, not the other way around.
Indeed, Women are able to make their lifestyle choices, funded by small business owners, and then expect their individual employer to operate around them. Hardly a tough lot in life is it?
You have had an example in your own ranks of people accepting tasks and then not doing them (I believe the Westminster term is “doing a Mensch”). The cost of the bye-election would have been borne by the taxpayer because the contract was not finished.
You have the opportunity to empower Women to take personal responsibility (together with another party, if any, who fertilised their embryo), to use “family planning” which is provided, and to put starting a family in the same bracket as taking a sabbatical to India, or sailing the 7 seas.
That is, to exercise a lifestyle choice and, if you are good at what you do, your Employer may want you back!
As, however, you are a “Government” Committee, Im not banking on your hand being removed from my wallet, or that of other small business owners, in the near future!
You are quick enough to take money but rather useless at delivering anything for it!
April 2016