Forty thousand medium-sized businesses will be freed from future red tape, the government said yesterday.
From today, the threshold at which businesses are exempt from certain new regulation is being raised from firms with less than 50 employees to those with 500 or fewer.
Some business groups expressed scepticism about the scope of the changes, saying those most affected would be the 4,000 companies with between 250 and 500 employees. Businesses employing fewer than 250 people are already classed as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and do not have to comply with certain corporate governance and reporting requirements.
