But do the women all intend to quit their current jobs and join full-time? “Well”, says Lyn, “I’m also interested in running a jewellery business.” Entrepreneurship, it would seem, is addictive.QUESTIONS PLEASESend your questions to Prof Russell Smith at ios businessboffins Selected questions will be answered each month. “Everything that we showcase has been carefully selected by us for quality and value for money,” explains Sharon, “which immediately removes a lot of stress for the client.” There’s no doubt that the relaxed but confident approach of the team puts customers at their ease which helps them to make decisions. It also helped with meeting the start-up costs that included fitting out and stocking the shop.Income is generated from direct product sales and from service providers who pay to advertise in their “gallery”. Which surely makes staffing their shop a bit of a challenge? “Not really”, says Jenny. “We make a feature of opening in the evenings and at weekends to make it easy for customers.” The earnings from their other employment have meant that they don’t initially need to take salaries from their new business, which helps with cash flow. This straightforward advice is offered as a free service for those wishing to plan their own celebration.What makes this team stand out is that they took the plunge and opened the shop while still holding down jobs elsewhere. And although the team wouldn’t describe themselves as wedding planners, they have developed a comprehensive range of guidance leaflets dealing with everything from the best man’s duties through to choosing the right lingerie for a wedding dress.

While wedding planners can relieve the stress, such a service comes at a price. And so sisters Lyn Rawlings, 35, and Jenny Boddy, 37, together with their friend Sharon Baker, 35, decided there must be a business opportunity in providing a cost-effective alternative.Their business idea is simple: create an informal, caf?tmosphere in which customers can browse through a range of products and services needed to plan the perfect day. The biggest factor driving the concern has been the reduced level of employer contributions to pensions.”Most employers also cut their contributions when moving from final salary schemes to the now- preferred defined contributions system – from an average of some 10 per cent to around 4 or 5 per cent, he argues. The exact rights and wrongs about how the top management behaved in the period since do need to be looked at.”But the Alchemy proposal would have resulted in a large loss of jobs. It was a reasonable and fair judgement at the time.”The other issue of the moment is pensions.

A few years ago, the mere mention of the word could clear the annual congress “People would use the opportunity to go for their tea break But that’s no longer the case. It’s one of the biggest issues because of the looming sense of crisis. The economy would be desperately unbalanced if everyone could earn a living by serving each other in the hospitality or financial services industries. The other major economies still maintain significant sectors. It would be wrong just to completely write it off.”Yet he does not believe that the Government made the wrong decision five years ago when it backed Phoenix’s controversial bid for Rover over Jon Moulton’s rival proposal.

The Alchemy deal would have meant 4,500 redundancies, but should have ensured 2,000 jobs were safe and that the brand survived.”The judgement call was that if an appropriate partnership could be found, Longbridge could have been maintained as a volume car manufacturer. We didn’t have a clear view about the level of investment needed to keep manufacturing competitive in the face of global competition.”He concedes that this is a state of affairs witnessed around the world but says the UK, which lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs last year alone, has suffered a greater rate of decline.”We need a vibrant manufacturing sector. If industrial companies pollute above their carbon allocation, they have to buy “credits” from greener companies. The price of carbon has doubled in the past month as generators have substituted gas (which has become very expensive) with coal. But because coal is dirtier than gas, generators must buy more carbon credits.The Energy Intelligence Centre (EIC) estimates that, combined, the three schemes cost businesses an extra £2bn each year, or 20 per cent on their normal electricity bill. Domestic users might be paying an extra 5 to 10 per cent each year, says analyst Matthew Williamson from EIC.The emissions scheme has been dogged by hold-ups, threats of legal action and complaints from participants. Companies were not given their individual carbon allocations until over a month after the scheme was introduced, largely due to EU delays in approving each country’s proposal.

Of more concern to companies is the uncertainty over what happens in 2008 when the first phase of the scheme comes to an end. The EU has not even begun consulting member countries or industry on how to set the new allocation levels. The only likelihood, says Phil Cox, chief executive of generator International Power, is that the second phase will be tougher than the first.Tony Ward, director of the energy practice at accountants Ernst & Young, predicts that it won’t be until next summer that the EU sets the next round of individual allocations. The uncertainty is damaging, he says, for companies cannot make long-term decisions about investing in technology to make their plants more efficient and so reduce their carbon bill – which is the whole point of the scheme. “The EU’s aim is to change companies’ behaviour and improve efficiency. But with all the uncertainty, the regulations are encouraging companies to sit on their hands and pushing them into a short-term compliance approach.”Mr Cox agrees: “These are long-term investments which need to be in place for a long time to get the payback. It’s all about clarity.”Steve Radley, chief economist at the EEF, a trade body for 6,000 engineering and manufacturing companies, warns that businesses may decide to move their operations overseas, where energy is cheaper.