For those of you who celebrate it, Happy New First Minister Day!

Whichever one of the three hopefuls emerges victorious at lunchtime today (presuming there hasn’t been another twist in what has been a truly extraordinary leadership contest), they are set to take the helm of a government being tossed in some very rough waters.

As last week’s shock rise in inflation reminded us, the cost-of-living crisis still pervades everything, from the public finances to households’ battles with their bills. At the same time, the small firms we’re relying on to trade us back to growth see costs up, margins down, confidence shaky, cashflow trickling and reserves exhausted.

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I’m not quite sure when serial crises became the new normal. But, plentiful or not, it can be too easy to forget that each crisis is still, in itself, a crisis. Just because small businesses have knuckled down, rallied, made it through Covid and then the first year of skyrocketing inflation and shortages, it doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to make it through another year, or six months, or even six weeks.

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Rightly, we often celebrate the tenacity and resilience of small businesses, alongside their track record of driving us out of economic downturns. But that doesn’t mean their survival is guaranteed.

If we accept that the ability to address all other issues will flow from steadying the economic ship, then letting small businesses get on and trade us back to growth should be the top priority for the new first minister.

One quick and simple way to do that would be to pause the swathe of new regulations coming small firms’ way from multiple different angles.

Outside of mounting costs, these new and proposed rules are the biggest single threat facing smaller businesses right now. There’s the embattled DRS (deposit return scheme) – which, unaccountably, still seems to be hurtling along towards certain failure. There are tourist taxes and low emission zones, not to mention the heavily criticised proposed restrictions on alcohol advertising and promotion.

Thankfully, the incoming first minister has a unique opportunity to hit pause and take stock. And, once they’ve given themselves some breathing space, they can think about how the policy intentions of these schemes, often perfectly laudable, can be enacted effectively and proportionately.

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And perhaps the best way to do this is to look at what went wrong with DRS.

Many of the practical issues (around space, cost and administration) for which those in charge of the scheme are now scrambling to find last-minute workarounds were raised by retailers and producers as far back as 2018. But, despite the obvious flaws being pointed out, the scheme progressed.

When it comes to measures like these, there needs to be a recognition that the people who will be closest to implementing new regulations – business owners – are the ones who have the best understanding of their potential pitfalls and the solutions to address them.

So they need to be taken seriously.

But it is not just the new first minister who will need to listen to the real, practical issues small businesses are dealing with right now. It is for everyone across government – here in Scotland and at Westminster.

That is why it was so disappointing that the UK Government’s latest Budget was lacking in immediate, practical solutions to the immediate pressures facing those in business.

The Budget would have been an ideal opportunity to take action on costs and cashflow – doing more to keep energy bills under some sort of control and getting businesses paid on time, for example.

Instead, what we got were long-term aspirations and more of an emphasis on the theory rather than the practice.

And it is the practical that must be king.

Small businesses make up 98% of our private sector enterprises. So, whatever government is doing – from regulation to encouraging research and development – it needs to think how that policy will actually land in a busy small business.

Perhaps, when the contractors are renovating Bute House, we could get them to affix a plaque to the First Minister’s office wall bearing the legend: “Nearly all business is small business.” A reminder that, if things don’t work for them, they don’t work at all.

Colin Borland is director of devolved nations for the Federation of Small Businesses