Keeping up with legal, financial, and economic shifts while running a business is a balancing act. To save you wading through pages of corporate jargon, we have summarized the key UK business updates from this month, along with a practical marketing strategy and a look at our latest software tools.
1. Employment Law: The Implementation of the Employment Rights Act
A major shift in employment law is now fully live across the UK following the implementation of the Employment Rights Act.
- What to know: According to advisory service Acas, the historic three-day waiting period for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) has been abolished. Employees now qualify for sick pay from their very first day of sickness absence. Furthermore, the lower earnings limit has been removed, meaning part-time or lower-paid workers earning under £125 a week now qualify for SSP. The rate is calculated at the lower of 80% of average weekly earnings or the flat £123.25 weekly rate.
- Why it matters: Minor absences now carry an immediate direct cost to your business, and a larger portion of part-time workforce brackets fall under the scope of mandatory sick pay.
- Your action: It is worth reviewing these changes with your HR adviser or payroll provider to ensure your internal staff handbooks and payroll software are fully compliant.
2. Tax and Finance: Dividend Tax Increases
If you operate your business as a limited company and extract profits via dividends, a structural update from the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT) will affect your take-home pay.
- What to know: While the tax-free dividend allowance stays at £500, the tax rates on dividend income above this threshold have risen. The basic rate of dividend tax has increased to 10.75% (up from 8.75%), and the higher rate has moved to 35.75% (up from 33.75%).
- Why it matters: Drawing business profits as dividends has become slightly more expensive, directly impacting net remuneration strategies for company directors.
- Your action: We recommend discussing your profit extraction strategy with your accountant to analyze whether shifting your balance of salary and dividends makes financial sense this year.
3. Economy: Bank Rate Held at 3.75%
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee met this month and opted to maintain the base interest rate at 3.75% for the fourth consecutive meeting.
- What is happening: Domestic inflation is holding relatively steady at 2.8%. While a peace deal in the Middle East has stabilized global oil markets, general commercial energy overheads remain high. The Bank is maintaining this rate to ensure inflation firmly trends down toward its 2% target.
- What it means for small businesses: Commercial borrowing and variable mortgage costs are unlikely to fall over the summer months. On the positive side, the rate pause brings an element of stability to financial forecasting and overhead planning after a volatile couple of years.
4. Marketing Tip: The “One-Month Follow-Up” Rule
When business gets busy, it is remarkably easy to let older leads go cold. This month, try a low-friction re-engagement experiment.
Pull a list from your pipeline of prospects who enquired exactly 30 to 60 days ago but never purchased or stopped replying. Send them a brief, plain-text email with no heavy graphics or complex sales pitches. Keep it personal:
“Hi [Name], I’m just checking in on your [project/problem] from last month. Did you end up getting this sorted, or do you still need a hand?”
Because this reads like an authentic note written directly from your inbox, it bypasses promotional filters. This simple template frequently achieves response rates of over 30%, successfully reviving older pipeline deals.
5. Product Update: What’s New in GatherCRM
We have rolled out several highly requested features this month designed to centralize your operations and cut down on admin:
- Quizzes for Lead Gen & Surveys: Build custom, engaging questionnaires to capture fresh leads directly from your website or gauge client satisfaction post-project.
- Client Portal: Give your customers a secure, professional branded space to view their specific project timelines, documents, and milestone updates.
- Email Templates: Save time on repetitive correspondence by saving your most frequent messages into an easily accessible template library.
- Quick-Add Tasks: Streamline your workflow by creating actions and reminders directly from inside a contact’s profile view.
If you are a GatherCRM user and want a guided walkthrough on setting up these features for your team, please log in and reach out via our support chat.
Important Notice: The regulatory and financial updates provided in this briefing are summarized from third-party bodies (including Acas, the ATT, and the Bank of England) for general informational purposes only. We strongly recommend validating this data independently and consulting your own certified legal, HR, or financial advisers before taking business action. GatherCRM cannot accept liability for decisions made based on this content.
Sources and further reading:
- Employment Law: Acas Guide to SSP Changes
- Taxation: Association of Taxation Technicians 2026/27 Housekeeping
- Interest Rates: Bank of England Monetary Policy Summary