Commenting on the Budget announcement that an extra £100 million will be given to business service providers to encourage and advise small-to-medium sized businesses (SMEs) on energy efficiency Natalie Evans, Head of Policy at the British Chambers of Commerce said:

“We welcome this extra funding to assist small businesses to go green.  However, it is important that this money will actually be effective in meeting this aim.

“SMEs account for 50% of business energy use so if the Government wants to meet it’s Climate Change Bill targets they need to ensure that they support and enable SME’s to become more energy efficient.

“SMEs are keen to become more energy efficient as a greener workplace creates a more efficient and profitable business.1

“The current system of Environmental Audits has been ineffective with 62% of respondents in a recent survey undertaken by BCC saying that they felt current government initiatives to promote energy efficiency were unsatisfactory.2

“If the Government wants to meet the challenge of climate change it is important that this extra funding is not wasted, but is properly targeted and made easy for business to access so that SMEs see a real positive change in the current support provided.”

A recent survey of businesses undertaken by the British Chambers of Commerce “Energy Efficiency: The Challenge for Government and Small Businesses”, some of the key results were:

1. 81.8% of our members cited a reduction in their energy bills as an important motivator in being more energy efficient.

2. 62% of our members felt that Government initiatives to promote energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions had been ineffective.

For a copy of this survey please click here.

Commenting on the Chancellor’s focus on education and skills in today’s Budget, David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said:

“We welcome the Chancellor’s promise to increase education funding which but we need to make sure that we see real value for money in terms of the results young people achieve.

“Throwing money at the problem alone, as previous Budgets has shown, is not the answer. We currently have a worrying large number of young people who are not engaged in further education or employment that is creating a real skills gap. A recent survey undertaken by the BCC has found that 55% of employers find it more difficult to recruit someone with the right skills than they did five years ago.

“That is why we are support increasing the compulsory school leaving age to 18 as we believe it will be of benefit in ensuring that young people are given the skills and education that they and businesses need. However, this must be accompanied by the successful implementation of reforms to the secondary curriculum to ensure that more young people want to stay on and are not shoehorned into training schemes in which they have no interest.

“The provision of a £2,000-3,000 grant for small businesses to provide training for employees with basic skills needs is also something which we are in favour of. This will ensure that small businesses have more control over government-funded training for these employees.

“By undertaking these measures the Government should take a step in the right direction towards dealing with the current issue of the UK skills gap ensuring the UK economy is able to maintain its competitiveness.”

Amongst the key findings of the BCC report UK Skills: Making the Grade:

• Over 55 per cent of businesses find it more difficult to recruit skilled staff than they did five years ago.
• Smaller employers do train their staff. Over 83 per cent of those surveyed source external training for their employees.
• The main barriers to training are a lack of financial resources and a lack of staff to cover employees in training.
• Of those businesses surveyed, 33 per cent have heard of Train to Gain. Just under 6 per cent have taken part in the scheme and of those 87 per cent were satisfied or very satisfied with the service received.

304 Businesses were surveyed in this report.

If you or your business want to learn more about sustainable energy, climate change programmes, environmental legislation and local companies working in this area, The Carbon Connection website can help.

The Carbon Connection is an online database which comprises a wide range of contacts working on sustainable energy-related topics within the Northwest region.

The purpose of the database is to provide an extensive, comprehensive and free resource for researchers, policy makers, practitioners, suppliers and anyone else interested in knowing about the wide range of sustainable energy activities and organisations that exist in the Northwest of England.

The database will include all contacts, both in and outside the region, that deliver or have developed sustainable energy or climate change-related projects that are within, or have an impact on, the Northwest. This includes Local Authorities, consultancies, communications specialists, research institutes, manufactures, NGOs, etc. The database will also include details of activities and projects that each of the organisations listed has delivered, or plans to deliver.

With the Government’s commitment to reducing the UK’s carbon emissions, to say nothing of the global impact of human activities, it’s important for us all to be aware of what we can do to help. Whether you are ready to take action, or need to find out more, visit the Carbon Connection site today.

On Friday16 March, the Chamber held one of its quarterly briefing sessions with Louise Ellman, MP. She updated attendees on her latest work and voting in the house. In particular, she described the importance of the Government’s Climate Change Bill in setting legally binding Co2 targets.

Louise also reported that she secured a debate in Westminster on the Maritime Sector. This covered outstanding issues around trade and the port including applications for powers to build a facility to handle post panamax container ships. (see article in Daily Post Wednesday 21 March for more details).

She then took questions from the assembled audience of businesses.

First raised was the issue of the regeneration of Liverpool and the concerns about the city’s readiness for the 08 celebrations.

Relating to this were concerns about the Big Dig. Some city centre businesses are struggling to get deliveries and alternative routes used by vehicles causing a danger to pedestrians. Louise noted these concerns, while she and Chamber staff were able to provide up-to-date information on the completion deadlines for the major projects in the city centre.

The third question submitted concerned Air Passenger Duty and its impact on some routes out of JLA. The increase was perceived as a merely an increase in duty without any environmental benefit.

The most vibrant debate centred around the lack of support for business start-ups, in terms of helping new businesses to become sustainable. The discussion focused on the lack of support for people who had funding or were not based in certain postcode areas. Louise said that she will pursue this issue.

The next, related, topic, a chamber member raised the issue of their business being undermined by Government funded services offered by universities that were deliberately targeting their sector. Louise offered to raise objections about these sources of funding.

She will report back on these issues and take further questions at the next meeting. This will be held at Liverpool Chamber on 8 June, for further information contact Nicky Lunt on 0151 227 1234 ext 2237 or book online now.