Announcing the launch of the portal, the chancellor George Osborne said: "I want to hear your brightest and best ideas. Next month’s Budget will be all about growth and I want to know what businesses, large and small, want from me."

According to BPIF director of corporate affairs Andy Brown, access to finance and the planned fuel duty rise in April are two of the main concerns for print.

He added that the Insolvency Service’s consultation on pre-packs, which has seemingly fallen into limbo following the change of government, also needed revisiting.

"The number of reported pre-packs is down a bit but the underlying problem with the legislation is still there and it would be terribly disappointing after all the effort from our industry in terms of the consultation, if nothing came of it after we got so close," said Brown.

"Governments are reactive and the lack of many high-profile pre-packs, such as those in the retail sector in 2009, may have made them think it’s less important, but from our point of view, the resurrection of failed businesses is a major impediment to growth in manufacturing."

Tim Webb, executive director of Picon, agreed that "continuing evidence of the lack of finance" was a major concern, and something that Picon would be lobbying to change through its membership of the Engineering and Machinery Alliance (EAMA).

"We also want to push the government to come good on its promises to help exporters because they’re saying a lot of good things, but not much, is really happening," said Webb.

The Budget representations will be used to inform policy development and form part of the coalition’s commitment to greater transparency and communication with the public.

Sidney Bobb, chairman of the BAPC, highlighted the government’s definition of SME as a major stumbling block in terms of its support for the many small businesses in the print industry.

"One of the problems with all the benefits provided to SMEs in the government’s fiscal policy is their definition of SME, which does nothing to differentiate what one might call micro-businesses," he said.

"I think there should definitely be some incentive for those micro printers – not just start-ups, but ones that have been going for a while and need help to develop and expand into the SME sector."

Bobb added that one cause the BAPC had long been championing was the need for private sector firms to have a payment policy, in a similar vein to that offered by the public sector.

"Every company should have a payment policy that they have to declare so that suppliers know where they stand," he said.

Last year, the government received more than 100,000 submissions from members of the public to the Comprehensive Spending Review, some of which were taken up and made into government policy.

PRINT'S BUDGET CONCERNS
• Access to finance remains a major concern for the print industry. Banks have claimed there is a lack of demand but annecdotal evidence suggests this is because they are deterring many would-be applicants

• Pre-packs continue to harm manufacturing and although significant progress was made with the Insolvency Service consultation last year, this now appears to be in limbo

• Government definition of SMEs means that much of the legislation to support them doesn’t help so-called micro-businesses