The British Furniture Confederation (BFC), the consortium of UK furniture trade and research associations and trade unions formed to represent the industry’s concerns and interests to parliament, has published its 2010 Strategic Plan for the life of the present parliament and held its first meeting with the new All Party Parliamentary Furniture Group (APPFG).
“Our mission is to sustain a strong and influential dialogue with government and to work to ensure its policies help support a thriving UK furniture industry,” said BFC chairman Martin Jourdan. “We want to raise the industry’s profile in political circles and to support and inform the members of the APPFG, by making them aware of the industry’s main concerns.”
The Strategic Plan focuses on seven key areas: supporting a vibrant and competitive UK furniture manufacturing base; committing to environmental and sustainability excellence; encouraging good design and protecting design copyright; maintaining quality and safety standards; increasing and improving the industry’s skills base; maximising the market in the UK; and encouraging exports.
As a starting point, four specific action papers were put before the APPFG (a group of MPs and peers who have stated a special interest in the furniture industry, chaired by Stephen McPartland, MP for Stevenage) at its meeting on 8 November 2010. This covered exports, public procurement, loan guarantees and a proposal for setting up a Furniture Advisory Board, which Mr McPartland agreed to take up with BIS. Other industry topics raised included unfair competition faced by wood based panel producers supplying the furniture industry, who find 2 themselves up against a heavily subsidised bio-fuels sector. Concerns were also expressed about the impact of phasing out the default retirement age.
The APPFG members called for the BFC to help them identify particularly pointless regulations that adversely affect a company’s ability to do business. This is in support of their de-regulation agenda.
“We are fully aware that our Strategic Plan is a wide-ranging overview of our aims and objectives for the furniture, bedding and furnishing industries. We know we can’t tackle everything at once,” said Mr Jourdan. “But we want to show this government how our aims can actually help them deliver their key goals. We know they want to reduce the deficit, increase private sector employment, improve the UK skill base and increase exports and our first position papers show them how, if they help us, we can help them.”
The BFC’s paper on exports supports the Foreign Secretary’s commitment to ensuring his embassy staff around the world become much more commercially savvy and offering to provide briefing sessions to Foreign Office (FO) staff. It also calls for the FO to ensure all UK embassies are a showcase of UK goods and services, by imposing a duty on all embassies to meet their capital requirements (including furniture) from UK companies.
On public procurement, the BFC states its support for the government’s efforts to reduce costs but to achieve that it is demanding a simpler, easier and more transparent approach to public purchasing, such as the CompeteFor system introduced for the 2012 Olympics.
More specifically, the BFC is also calling for the government to get tougher with banks’ lending criteria – stamping down on the practice of demanding personal guarantees even when the loans are taken out under the Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme.*
In addition, as RDAs around the country are dismantled in favour of Local Enterprise Partnerships, the BFC is proposing the formation of a Furniture Advisory Body to liaise with BIS and advise on appropriate disbursement of any funds which might in future be available to the UK furniture industry. “We previously lost out on European structural funds which should have come our way because virtually none of the RDAs recognised our industry as a priority sector,” said Mr Jourdan. “But we directly employ over 119,000 people in over 8,000 3 companies and contribute £8.3bn (2009) to the UK economy. We don’t want to lose out again.”
The full BFC Strategic Plan and Positioning Papers can all be viewed on the BFC website at www.britishfurnitureconfederation.org.uk.
ENDS
Press enquiries: For further information please contact Jessica Alexander at the NBF on 0845 055 6406 or Jessica@bedfed.org.uk. Or Martin Jourdan on thejourdans@jourdan.me.uk
Editors’ Notes
* The Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme facilitates additional bank lending to viable Small & Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) which lack collateral to secure a normal commercial loan. The Government provides the lender with a guarantee for which the borrower pays a premium. Further information can be accessed from the following link: www.bis.gov.uk/policies/enterprise-and-business-support/access-tofinance/enterprise-finance-guarantee
The British Furniture Confederation (BFC) acts a single voice for UK furniture and bed manufacturers. Led by an executive, comprising representatives of WCFM, BCFA, FIRA and NBF, and supported by associate members (AMUSF, GMB, Proskills), its mission is to ensure that the UK furniture industry has a strong and sustainable dialogue with Government. Its roles include:
- Securing the long term future and prosperity of the British furniture industry
- Raising the profile of the industry at a political level
- Formulating strategies for dealing with key industry issues
- Engaging in dialogue and negotiating with Government on these issues
- Working with the All Party Parliamentary Furniture Group to promote cross party discussion and to meet with senior influencers within Government agencies
- Ensuring that the industry gains the recognition and attention that its size deserves