The Federation of Small Businesses is a UK business organisation representing small and medium-sized businesses. It was formed in 1974 as the National Federation of Self Employed. The current name for the organisation was adopted in 1991. It is registered with Companies House as The National Federation of Self Employed & Small Businesses Limited. FSB is a member-led, not-for-profit and non-party political organisation. FSB is a lobbying organisation representing small firms and the self-employed to UK, national, local and devolved government. FSB offers its members a range of benefits, such as a 24-hour legal advice line and free business banking. In January 2018, FSB's Board of Directors altered the organisation's volunteer structure by switching from elected Branches & Regions to an unelected, ad-hoc approach to local lobbying & representation. This necessitated changes to FSB's National Council which now comprises 12 appointed representatives, selected from the 9 English regions and the 3 devolved countries. In 2017 FSB had 184 branches around the UK and these were grouped into 33 regions. Each branch and region has its own committee. In addition, there is a national committee which includes representatives from each regional committee.
National campaigns
FSB runs a number of national campaigns on behalf of its members, to highlight the needs of Small Businesses and the Self Employed. Most recently FSB ran a ‘Wellbeing’ campaign to support the health of small business owners and their staff. The campaign was backed by MIND, Public Health England, UK Active, and Seb Coe. Historically, previous campaigns have included:
Keep Trade Local: FSB Launched the Keep Trade Local campaign in August 2008
Real Life Entrepreneurs: FSB launched Real Life Entrepreneurs in October 2011
#ibacksmallbusiness: FSB launched #ibacksmallbusiness campaign in July 2014 The #ibacksmallbusiness campaign has been a success and is still an active hashtag.
FSB also supports a number of other national campaigns on behalf of its members, to highlight the needs of Small Businesses and the Self Employed.
Lobbying
FSB's past political lobbying activities have led in its own opinion to a number of benefits for small businesses, such as:
The reduction or removal of Corporation Tax for small limited companies
VAT reform in the form of a flat rate scheme for small businesses
An end to automatic fines for incorrect filing of VAT returns
Events
FSB organises events aimed at supporting FSB, its members and the small business community around the United Kingdom. National events are arranged by FSB's Events Team based in the Blackpool office, with the assistance of a nationwide network of staff and volunteers. The FSB National Conference attracts more than 1,100 attendees from all over the United Kingdom. Speakers have included Prime Ministers, Leader of the Opposition, Chancellor of the Exchequer and many more. The FSB National Conference was replaced with a Business Show in 2017. FSB is running a series of regional Awards to celebrate small businesses. These are open for nomination now, with 12 categories in each. The awards will take place in Spring 2018, building up to a national final in May 2018 as part of FSB’s Chairman’s Dinner. FSB is represented at local events like Nottinghamshire County Fair, Lincoln Show, Love Business East Midlands, and others. FSB's Regions and Branches host regular meetings around the country. Generally Branch meetings are open to all members. FSB also runs business networking events around the UK.
Membership
FSB is a member-led federation. Membership criteria are as follows:
Self-Employed or the owner, partner, or director of a business Based in the United Kingdom
The membership was 185,000 in 2006 and >160,000 in 2016. The membership is 200,000+ if Joint, Associate, Retired, Connect and Business Creation affiliates are included.
The FSB Small Business Index measures confidence among small firms. The FSB SBI has been quoted by the Bank of England, the BBC, Economia, and EADT.
Current logo
The current logo for the organisation was adopted in November 2015. The costs of this re-branding was £0.3M and took well over a year to complete including a complete re-branding of the FSB Website.
