Pmore than 400,000 applicable standards, 7,451 additional decrees published in ten years, and 253 million letters exchanged each year between businesses and administrations. Don’t throw any more away, the numbers speak for themselves. “Paperwork” has become a scourge for businesses, especially small ones. On average, the boss of a VSE or SME can spend seven to eight hours per week, or almost a working day, dealing with administrative tasks. According to the Union of Independents (SDI), which claims 25,000 members, this can represent 1 to 3…
Pmore than 400,000 applicable standards, 7,451 additional decrees published in ten years, and 253 million letters exchanged each year between businesses and administrations. Don’t throw any more away, the numbers speak for themselves. “Paperwork” has become a scourge for businesses, especially small ones. On average, the boss of a VSE or SME can spend seven to eight hours per week, or almost a working day, dealing with administrative tasks. According to the Union of Independents (SDI), which has 25,000 members, this can represent 1 to 3% of the turnover of a small business.
Aware of the problem, Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, unveiled his action plan “Simplification! », around fifty measures to help leaders, part of which will be the subject of a law discussed from June 3 in the Senate. The Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (CPME), which defends the interests of VSEs and SMEs in all sectors, welcomes the government’s decision and “supports this project” but “waits for effective measures rather than legislating urgently”.
Stacking of measures
The representative body of small employers has published its own list of “80 proposals to put an end to administrative complexity”. First of all, the CPME recommends putting an end to the inflation of standards, rules and laws of all kinds. In particular, it requires “carrying out experiments before any legislative or regulatory modification”, “carrying out an impact study on the usefulness, effectiveness and cost of the 500 standards that weigh the most on businesses” or even “ freeze the number of pages of existing Codes”. “There is a lot of new legislation and their absorption requires a lot of time and human resources,” underlines Cécile Despons, president of the CPME of Gironde. We must stop piling up measures. » On these points, the demands of business leaders seem to have been heard since the minister confirmed the institution of an “SME test” to assess the impact of the new standards.
“The simplified pay slip is window dressing, window dressing”
As for business leaders, we remain cautious. “I don’t want to judge intentions but, with what has been announced, I don’t see the shock of simplification,” says Éric Sainclair. Manager of the Andqo group, a specialist in industrial maintenance based in Blanquefort (33), he sees only a “vast humbug” in the simplified pay slip, which would go from 55 to 15 lines, proposed by Bruno Le Maire. “It’s window dressing, display. We simplify the presentation, but not the content. » Same criticism for Cécile Despons, of the CPME, who believes that it is not with this type of proposal that we will fight against complexity. Especially since the new pay slip risks inducing “a software change which will result in additional costs for companies”.
“Someone on the line”
“The most unbearable thing,” says Éric Sainclair, “is filling out the same information ten times: turnover, salaries, number of employees… New technologies should be used to create a single place in which to enter all the information. data. » A recurring request from bosses, which the CPME echoes by demanding in its “80 proposals” the creation of an “electronic safe to access digital documents in complete confidentiality”. Without committing to this point, Bruno Le Maire announced the elimination of the 1,800 Cerfa administrative forms by 2030, including 80% by 2026, to avoid multiplying the communication of the same documents to several administrations.
Another Source of annoyance for bosses is “dematerialization, which should not be synonymous with dehumanization.” “We need to have someone on the line,” complains Éric Sainclair. “This is one of the major difficulties encountered by entrepreneurs,” confirms Cécile Despons. They need direct contact to request information. In construction, for example, they must know who to contact at Dreal [Direction régionale de l’environnement, de l’aménagement et du logement, NDLR]. But inspectors are often transferred from one region to another and, by the time someone takes over the file, it has an impact on the company. »
To make their voice heard, CPME representatives will try to influence the debates in the Senate by bringing their field experience so that the measures ultimately adopted correspond most closely to their needs.
