DECC have revealed that in order for the UKs energy networks to continue functioning a £41.6 billion investment by 2020 is needed, The report alarmingly claims that the UK’s electricity networks, the transmission and distribution system, require the bulk of the new investment in order to cope with future demand costing £34bn whilst the gas […]
SMEs in 2015: Threats, Changes & Opportunities
Today we round-up some of the key changes, and threats, for SMEs in 2015 from modern era “supply chain bullying” through to 500 year old tax systems. Running an SME is never easy, indeed with 8% of businesses failing within 12 months and 59% within 5 years, the drive, commitment and determination of entrepreneurs of […]
VAT MOSS relief for UK SMEs
A controversial new VAT arrangement that was due to impact UK SMEs from 1st January has had its worst excesses reigned in following a timely intervention by the government. The new arrangements had meant that whenever a business sold digital services and products such as ebooks, e-courses, recorded training videos, music and audio downloads: the […]
Ofgem betray business energy customers once again
Already a year on from the Big 6 Energy suppliers having acted (albeit under pressure from the Number 10 Downing Street SME Energy Working Group of which Business Juice CEO James Constant was a founder member), Ofgem, the erstwhile energy industry regulator, published a ‘statutory’ consultation on the operation of automatic rollovers in the business […]
Business Juice reveal latest Business Energy Supplier Ease to Leave survey
Business Juice has today released the results of its latest Ease to Leave survey. The quarterly survey measures the propensity for a supplier to raise an objection to an application to leave their supply. The latest results have Opus Energy as the supplier most likely to object to a transfer, with the previous ‘leader’ BES improving to second […]
ONS reveal latest business birth & death rate figures
New figures show that the business ‘birth rate’ grew to a near 10 year high in 2013. The business birth rate is a measures of newly established companies as a proportion of all enterprises in the UK. The report, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), revealed that: The number of new UK businesses established […]
Infographic – Oil’s impact on Business Energy
Brent crude might have plummeted between June 2014 and January 2015 but unfortunately this has a limited impact on the price of gas and even less on the price of electricity. As a nation we import 53% of gas into the UK and of that 73% is from Europe with the remainder being LNG from Qatar. Traditionally […]
Carbon Floor Tax to hit Business Energy costs
Yet more bad news for energy users, except this one we’ve known about for a while now, perhaps conveniently hoping it wouldn’t come to fruition. But that is has, and from 1st April 2015 another one of those pesky taxes on energy is taking a hike, a big hike. With Osborne’s recent populist posturing and […]
Energy supplier service failings continue
Being left hanging on the phone is a common occurrence these days with the proliferation of IVRs (those annoying “press one, press two” messages that seem to simply be a ruse to make you hang up having wasted time and money on a fruitless call) and the remote call centres with suspiciously incompatible names and […]
PM: “Enough is Enough” for Wind Subsidies
The Conservative Party’s dislike for onshore wind is well known and now Prime Minister David Cameron has called that “enough is enough” for the subsidies available for renewable energy technology and that “frankly the public are fed up” with onshore wind. The same can’t be said of foreign investors however with the news that China’s […]