A small business organisation is calling for politicians to commit to combating crime against small firms.
More than half of Britain’s businesses have been a victim of crime in the last year – but more than a third believe that reporting crimes to the police “will achieve nothing”, the Federation of Small Businesses has warned.
New research, based on a survey of the FSB’s 185,000 members, has found that 58 per cent of small businesses have suffered at least one crime during the last year.
The most frequent crimes are vandalism (27 per cent), vehicle damage (25 per cent) and burglary (14 per cent).
Visible and accessible businesses such as shops, hotels and restaurants are most likely to be the victims of crime, while the worst hit regions over the last 12 months were Yorkshire and Humberside, North West England and the East Midlands.
Crime has a devastating impact on small firms, it is claimed, eating into slim budgets and causing disruption and anxiety in the workplace. The federation claims that many firms have effectively opted out of the criminal justice system: 36 per cent believed that reporting crime will achieve nothing; a quarter felt police would not be able to catch the criminals and 20 per cent also admitted to not reporting crimes to keep their insurance premiums from rising.
What they say
FSB Crime Spokesperson David Croucher said: “There is a perception among business owners that the UK is experiencing a crime epidemic and that no one cares. This is hardly surprising when business crime is not one of the police’s performance standard indicators, when as a result it misses out on vital funding, when planning regulations often prevent businesses from installing crime prevention measures such as metal shutters and CCTV and when businesses that do invest in these measures are stung with business rate bill increases as a result.
“Crimes against business are not given a high priority because they are often viewed as ‘victimless’. But crimes can be devastating for a small firm and its employees. It causes disruption and anxiety in the workplace while scarce financial resources are wasted through the after effects of crime, limiting future growth.”
