Capital One Small Business released the results of its Small Business Barometer survey for the second quarter of 2011. The quarterly survey polls small businesses across the nation, gauging their current financial condition and business projections for the next six months.

The survey suggests that many U.S. small businesses are experiencing gradual, but continued improvement in financial performance. The small business leaders surveyed also report growing confidence in the economic environment, which appears to be contributing positively to hiring and investment decisions for their business in the near term.

The survey notes that the availability of credit and financing for small businesses continues to grow and fulfilling capital needs is becoming less of a concern for small businesses. Eighty-five of U.S. small businesses surveyed report that they are able to access the financing they need, consistent with results from the first quarter of 2011 but 12 percentage points higher on a year-over-year basis. Only 16% of businesses polled have tried to obtain financing in the past 12 months.

Only 16% of small businesses in the survey say that securing the capital needed to continue operations will be one of the biggest challenges they face over the next six months.

“Our second quarter survey results suggest that many small businesses are seeing sustained improvement in business performance. This is a trend we’ve seen developing over the last few quarters and, while the pace has been modest, it has been generally consistent and that’s definitely something we like to see,” said Peter Appello, executive vice president of Small Business Banking at Capital One Bank.

“While there continues to be a level of caution as businesses think about expenditures, we are seeing a small but healthy up-tick this quarter in the percentage of small businesses planning to hire and increase spending on business development and investments over the next six months. Although most of those businesses planning to hire will keep expansion modest, these results are encouraging for the second half of the year,” Appello added.

To read the full text of the Capital One survey results: click here.