Family-run businesses ‘are backbone of the UK’
THE HIGH street has suffered from covid lockdowns, soaring business rates and competition from out-oftown shopping malls.
But a new study to mark Small Business Week, has shown that family businesses are not just economically but socially viable to the UK economy.
According to research carried out by Oxford Economics for the IFB, the economic value of the sector is substantial.
It estimated that there were around 4.8 million family-owned businesses in the UK in 2017, almost 3.9 million of which had no employees.
That constituted 85.1 per cent of all private sector firms in the country in every region and industrial sector, at the time the research was carried out.
Liz Barclay, Small Business Commissioner, said that her own upbringing illustrated the importance of small businesses: “Producing a livelihood for a family of five, as well as paying suppliers of animal food and farm equipment, plus labour for hay and crop processing, was the bit we didn’t see as kids.
“When a valuable animal died, some accident struck, or the paperwork deadlines loomed, there was a different, far more serious, air around the otherwise cheerfully bustling yards.”
During this first Family
Business Week, people are being urged to recognise the versatility, variability and strength of the country’s family-owned businesses.
These are often deeply rooted in their communities and the local High Street.
Mark Stepek, the CEO of the Scottish Family Business Association, said: “Family businesses can be highly sustainable and focused on preserving their business success for the long-term.