04a JSNA Appendix , item 5. PDF 6 MB - Lambeth Council

DRAFT
education provision in the borough. In contrast, the black African community is
more positive than the Lambeth norm and tend to rate services well. In particular
street cleaning, nursery, primary and secondary education, libraries and parking
all received higher than average ratings 116 .
Small businesses
Small business owners are concerned about crime. Research carried out by the
Federation for Small Businesses (FSB) in 2004 showed that 57% of small
businesses in London had been a victim of crime in the previous 12 months 117 .
Many of these crimes are not reported to the police because small business
owners feel that ‘it would not achieve anything’ (40%), that the police are unlikely
to catch the perpetrators (27%) and because they do not want to make a claim
against their insurance (22%).Other concerns for small business owners are too
much legislation, red tape and regulations. Owners are dissatisfied with the
complexity (60%) volume (59%) and rate of change (56%) of legislation.
Legislation that was received least positively by owners was higher insurance
premiums and increases in National Insurance contributions 118 .
The FSB also calls for improvements to local government procurement
procedures to benefit small businesses. Suggestions include breaking down
contracts instead of aggregating them, so reducing the need to only purchase
from large suppliers. All contracts should be widely advertised regardless of their
value to encourage more participants to apply and there is a need to make it
easier to understand how to get on approved supplier lists and simplify pre
qualification paperwork.
Small businesses also want affordable town centre parking to enable people to
use their business. They believe there is also a need to standardise parking
across London borough’s provide more information about the offence on the
parking ticket and allow appeals and refunds against unfair tickets.
Recommendations for the CFP to address
• The priority services to focus on to improve the customer experience are:
- Council Housing especially the repairs service
- Parking
- Leisure and Sports facilities
- Planning especially the promptness of resolution and keeping people
informed with the progress of their application.
116 Lambeth residents’ survey 2007.
117 Federation of Small Businesses, Lifting the barriers survey 2004.
118 Federation of Small Businesses, Lifting the barriers survey 2004
Lambeth JSNA – Preliminary assessment
Version 4
October 2008
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