The Bishop of Liverpool, The Rt Rev James Jones, visited Liverpool Chamber today, Thursday 22 March.

He was here to meet Chamber staff and members, see how we work and learn more about the Liverpool business community.

He gave an inspirational speech on the regeneration of Liverpool, and the importance of the public and private sectors working together to achieve common goals.

He is pictured above with David Wade-Smith, Chamber Chair and Matt Johnson, Board Member and Chair of Mando Group.

Our new quick poll, on the Chamber’s main site homepage, is asking Liverpool businesses if they think this budget will be good news for them.

Obviously a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer can’t cover all your views, so if you’ve got something to say following Gordon’s latest dispatch, you can do so here by leaving a comment.

The Chamber is here to represent your views, so we really do want to hear what you think.

The results from our last poll - ‘Are you ready to go Smoke Free?’ showed that 57.75% of respondents felt they were ready, to 42.25% who weren’t.

Commenting on the announcement by Alan Johnson today which details the plans to increase the school leaving age from 16 to 18 David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce said:

“The BCC is in favour of increasing the compulsory education leaving age to 18 in order to improve the current participation rate in education and employment amongst young people in the UK.

“It is imperative that all young people get a solid foundation in skills and qualifications. This will give both individuals and businesses the necessary skills to drive the UK economy forward in the face of continuing globalisation.

“We recognise that the proposed changes may present challenges for some businesses and we are working with the Government to enable a smooth transition.”

The £1M ICT Investment Fund is over half allocated!

The fund was set up to help SMEs on Merseyside improve their competitiveness and turnover by investing in technology.

Liverpool Chamber of Commerce is managing the programme on behalf of the Government Office North West.

ICT Fund Administrator, John Blades says: “We’ve granted funding to 29 companies ranging from manufacturers to accountants.

The fund provides up to 40% towards investments in ICT. Grants are available from between £10k and £25k. John continued: “There has been a great deal of interest in the project and I estimate that we will have allocated the remainder of the fund by August.”

Recent beneficiaries include charted accountants and business advisors, Wilson Henry Partnership who purchased a new telephony system and supporting IT that enabled them to increase employee flexibility and contact with the office and clients.

Southport-based manufacturer of filing systems, Railex used the bulk of their budget for upgrading their back office system to an SQL based database providing better information throughout the company and to customers.

Director, David Windsor explained: “The funding has enabled us to put in place a system of dealing with order requests where none existed previously. Without the ICT fund we wouldn’t have been able to buy the software which has given us new capabilities and opportunities.”

If you would like further information or help with an application, call John Blades on 0151 - 227 1234 or email john.blades@liverpoolchamber.org.uk. More details can be found at www.ict-invest.info

Here is an update on the engineering work taking place on the West Coast mainline for all the Virgin Train users amongst you.

Full details after the jump.

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