Big cut in red tape urged

The Institute of Directors (IoD) urged the Government to "step out of the way" of industry, warning that a culture change was needed to release firms from being "over burdened".

Using a new approach to measure the cost of regulation, based on the experiences of people running businesses, the IoD said it believed the cost of Government regulation had soared to more than 80bn a year, equivalent to 5.7 per cent of the UK's economic output.

Directors were spending over a month each year, or 13 hours a month, handling Government red tape, said the report.

The burden on workforces was equivalent to one member of staff working continuously on regulation for five and a half months to complete a business's annual regulation administration, said the IoD.