Following on smoothly from the news of a 40% increase in the number of businesses in the last ten years and considering the role the Scottish Government has played in nurturing this comes the news that almost 104 000 small businesses were given rate relief to the tune of £226 million this year, up from £180 million in the year before. I guess, judging by that number some of these were very small businesses indeed. The Small Business Bonus Scheme has saved businesses around £1.5 billion since it began and in many cases, has saved those businesses from closure and the loss of jobs.
Schemes like this are surely part of the explanation for Swedish payments firm iZettle’s July survey ranking Scotland as: ‘the best place in the UK to start a business, thanks to five key factors.’
The five factors are:
confidence,
support,
resilience,
money,
balance.
According to the survey, reported in the Scotsman, respondents said parents and partners are their biggest champions, believed that having a “warrior spirit” is a key trait to thrive as a small business and if they had the choice they would do it all over again. They must have forgotten about the rates relief, I guess.
https://news.gov.scot/news/record-number-of-small-businesses-accessing-relief
Talking-up Scotland 
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