FMB responds to the Commons BIS Committee report on government support for business

“Access to finance is a major barrier to growth across the SME construction sector but particularly for small local house builders. Although government has made some headway in terms of improving access to finance for construction SMEs, the Committee is right to point out that part of the problem relates to ineffective communication. The Government has drastically reduced its spending on advertising and therefore many of these firms simply don’t know what’s available. There is a role for trade associations like the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) here but ideally we should be operating a two pronged approach with both government and industry taking responsibility for highlighting these publically-funded support schemes.

“In relation to improving access to finance for SME construction firms, the FMB and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveys are calling on government to create a “Single Construction Finance Hub”, which would provide a single platform to access finance from both public and private sources. It would connect willing lenders and pools of funding with construction SMEs in need of such finance. The Hub could deliver a central access point for all publicly funded schemes including the Builders Finance Fund and Get Britain Building. For simplicity’s sake, Government needs to streamline its communications wherever possible. After all, there is no point setting up these schemes if few businesses are making use of them.”