WRITTEN ON May 18th, 2008 BY Richard S AND STORED IN Uncategorized

Companies House Web Filing: 2008

In response to the usual menacing letter from Companies House (part of BERR), I again made the time to file the private home addresses of my company’s officers on the public records of Companies House: Public records which are open to all manner of scammers and criminals!

I found my paperwork; fetched my debit card (to pay the compulsory filing fee); found my login details and passwords; looked-up the URL of Companies House; logged into their horrid web-site; hunted until I found the correct link… and failed!

Apparently this self-important part of UK plc is closed on Sundays! (Although their menacing letters fail to state their restricted opening times.)

Another reason that Companies House is high on my list of redundant government organisations…

The individual staff of Companies House have always been helpful, but the organisation adds nothing but threats, risks, hassle and costs to my company and to other small companies. Large companies could be policed adequately by other means.

Strangely, the Companies House web-site carries all manner of “badges” and “awards” – often a bad sign! However it displays very badly in my modified Firefox web-browser. With my enlarged fonts, too much of the text and internal hyperlinks overlap each other; too much is un-readable.

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Screen-shot: Bottom of Companies House web home page, showing lots of “badges” but lots of overlapping text.

Wibbis:

1. Many people and companies now work 24/7 and have to do admin. in spare moments: Could government co-operate by becoming more flexible?

2. If Companies House is really so vital, why is it not available 24/7?

3. If Companies House is not really so vital, why not simply close it down?

4. Government web-sites should set an example for good “accessibility.”