We are facing a Change Challenge.

The media is daily reporting the emerging results from our two-hundred-year use of fossil fuels, which is in danger of changing our world beyond repair due to the resultant global warming.

Why is global warming important? By increasing the surface temperature of the Earth it is causing climate change, which in turn is creating new and difficult conditions for the natural world. To take just one example that affects people in the UK, countries that supply us with salad crops (half of all our food is imported) are facing hotter summers and water shortages, so there’s increased risk to our food supply.

Emerging responses to climate change are being documented on a new Community Works website. Such practical action is in effect a second change, and some of the first, environmental change can be reduced but not entirely reversed.

This leads on to the third change – our lives and all our worlds are inevitably going to be different. There is no going back to what we remember from our childhood. Somehow, we must identify a better way of living and take action towards it, there is no looking back over our shoulder.  This could be the most difficult challenge of all, and perhaps why the young are best placed to lead the way.

Discussion notes from a Forest Means Business meeting 25th September 2019 – interesting to compare with our reality three years later

What are our concerns about Brexit?

• Economic uncertainty!  Affecting housing, employment…
• Knock-on economic effects of price hikes
• Impact on tenants who import / manufacture
• Lack of understanding of costs of restructuring the economy
• Costs of the new world
• Pound / dollar currency problems
• Stockpiling stock – taking up room (good for warehousers!)
• Time of supply chain
• Reduced spend, both B2B and B2C
• Legal issues
• No trade deal = restricted exports
• Staffing problems if have EU employees

Is it just brinkmanship?

Published Government advice in the event of a no-deal Brexit has not been updated since the Prime Minister’s announcement of the possibility on 16^th October 2020.

For example, advice on trade tariffs published on 23^rd August 2018 is still live:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/classifying-your-goods-in-the-uk-trade-tariff-if-theres-no-brexit-deal/classifying-your-goods-in-the-uk-trade-tariff-if-theres-a-no-brexit-deal

Under these circumstances, it seems appropriate to revisit the recommendations of business experts from a seminar for Gloucestershire businesses held in the Forest of Dean on the 27^th February 2019, which addressed particular issues around importing and exporting:

ASSESS THE RISKS TO YOUR BUSINESS

• LEGAL – the legal environment may alter rapidly if No Deal; EU staff?
• CURRENCY – manage risks around the exchange rate
• TARIFFS – may need country of origin certificates; new customs checks
• COMMERCIAL VIABILITY – will your contracts become unviable?
• CASH FLOW – may take longer to get money in to pay invoices

IF YOU ARE WORKING WITH EUROPE:

• Get an EORI number (Economic Operator Registration and Identification Number) in case of No Deal
• Nominate an EU representative to act as your business’s “front door”
• UK workers going overseas can be treated as a “posted worker” – this requires paperwork, including an A1 tax form.
• Be clear about data channels and the legal basis for sharing data
• Keep All The Documentation!

EVEN IF NOT WORKING WITH EUROPE

• Check whether your customers or suppliers are affected by No Deal
• Study each line in your profit & loss account
• Check each line in your business overheads
• Make sure you know who you’re employing (EU settlement scheme; EU sponsorship licence by 2021 for employing staff from the EU)
• NB Trade with other countries is underwritten by EU agreements…

GETTING ADVICE = COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

• See Government technical notices
• Look at all No Deal guidance, including from your sector institute or professional body
• Join chambers of commerce etc.
• Check out the GFirst LEP website, get advice from Growth Hub navigators
• One-to-one advice is available

BREXIT OPPORTUNITIES

• May well be Government initiatives post-Brexit (supporting exports?)
• Look out for Government subsidies, such as productivity grants for energy efficiency (some may be loans, not grants)
• Import substitution, finding UK sources for material and goods
• Innovation Lab at Coleford library – 3D printer, great new technology
• Look at what is being imported into the UK, could be opportunities in distributing EU goods

Businesses that trade with Europe may have already looked at all these matters, but a no-deal Brexit may slow down the flow of goods and cash and have a knock-on effect on many other businesses. 

If not done so already, it could be timely for all businesses to check out the above points, but also to get up-to-date advice from your industry sector and your Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). 

31/05/2019

It seems I may owe the Civil Service an apology!

The report about building on 2% of land in England came from the Policy Exchange, which describes itself on its website as the UK’s leading think tank.

The November 2012 quote from the then Planning Minister Nick Boles on BBC Newsnight¹ that building on another 2-3% of the land in England would “solve the housing problem” seems to be a soundbite derived from a think-tank report about the planning system published by the Policy Exchange in September 2012².  That report actually said “Only 2% of England being built on would allow 8 million homes to be built”, and also said in a throwaway line that “Building more [homes] could drive UK growth over the short and medium term”.

31/08/2018

I was thinking about a blog on food production, when a Brexit panic beat me to it!  So many scare stories in the press about:

·         The danger of food deliveries being backed up at the Channel ports if there is a no-deal Brexit

·         Supermarkets can be empty after three to five days (as we know from past lorry strikes, not least the fuel protest in 2000), and

·         The Government allegedly making plans for stockpiling food.

10/08/2013

Several years ago, there was a planning application that caused a big controversy in Gloucester for a “gentlemen’s” club.  One of my City Council colleagues said that kind of business was a feature of “late capitalism”, a strange phrase to me at the time – I wonder how many other people see it that way.

I was reminded of the phrase again this week when a friend of mine told me that a short-term investment she’d made through a major UK bank was about to mature – but the said bank had absolutely no suggestions about where she might invest next.  Now that sounds more like “late capitalism” to the uninitiated – you’ve got money, but we’ve no idea what you should do with it.

31/10/2011

There’s a lot in the press these days about quality of life in England – post mortems around the summer riots, debates about the planning laws and “sustainable development”, the impact of financial disasters elsewhere.  Government says at one point “spend your savings, because we need to support the shops”, and at another point “keep building up your savings or you’ll having nothing to support your old age”, while following a long-term trend of selling the family silver – looks like the English countryside may be next – to keep the money trudging round and pay off “sovereign debt”.  Greece isn’t the only nation that’s been living on plastic credit, it seems.

It’s all very topical and there’s a lively debate, but what is the real solid ground for the future?

10/06/2011

I have read a lot recently about the UK economy, and what might “save” it in the long term.

After years of running down manufacturing as something on its way out (and let’s not push it out the door too quickly, my friends, we’re talking jobs and UK income here!), and following a big emphasis on “creative industries”, now manufacturing suddenly seems to have come back into fashion.  But what’s the future direction?