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On November 7th, the day that the US election results dominated the front pages of every major newspaper, another milestone – the half-way point of Britain’s first fixed-term parliament – passed relatively unnoticed. Yet November 7th is a date that deserves our attention in the business community. It is the mid-term watershed for the Coalition government, and an important opportunity to evaluate the government’s progress on key issues of concern to companies across the land. So what has this government done well to date?

First and foremost, it has maintained the UK’s market credibility in the midst of a global economic storm through its commitment to deficit reduction. From the Prime Minister on down, the Cabinet has committed more time and attention to international trade, the key priority of the Chamber Network, than any Government preceding it. Ministers have also recognised the need to focus on improving our business infrastructure, even if it’s not happening anywhere near fast enough.

What’s more, the government is also delivering smaller measures that generate business confidence: reductions in the volume of regulation, reform of the employment tribunal system and changes to dismissal rules, simplification of health and safety and reduced inspections, and more. Ministers have however made a range of poor decisions. Here, I’m referring not to highly-visible but inconsequential U-turns on pasties, but to big and strategic issues that could damage the UK’s business competitiveness. The government has persevered doggedly in implementing some unfortunate policies, including a populist but damaging array of immigration restrictions that stop or put off companies that need specialist staff, a wrong-headed approach to aviation expansion, chaotic energy policies that hurt both business customers and investors, and the introduction of the eighth change to parental leave in a decade.

Finally there’s unfinished business. The government’s mid-term performance is characterised, above all, by what I’d call a capability-expectations gap. Businesses expect prompt action following announcements, on issues like access to finance, infrastructure, and reductions in regulation. Yet so often, that action is slow in coming – if it arrives at all. So my midterm message to ministers is this: if you make a promise, follow through before you even think about making another. Deliver key infrastructure projects, deliver a Business Bank, and cancel poorly-thought-out regulatory proposals that actually just add more red tape. Business will only derive confidence from your actions when we see real things happening on the ground. Everything else is just hot air.

Cutting Red Tape remains a key objective for the Norfolk Chamber as we head towards 2013. The Minister for Business and Enterprise, Rt Hon Michael Fallon, announced recently that as part of the government’s red tape blitz a new One-in Two-out rule will be imposed across every Whitehall department from January 2013. This will mean that for every one pound of new UK regulations imposed, two pounds of savings will need to be found by departments to offset this. The new system will apply to domestic regulation affecting businesses and voluntary organisations. This is similar to the previous system of ‘One-in, One-out’ which required the costs of every new regulation to be matched by savings of an equivalent amount.

We welcome this measure which should help to reduce the unnecessary amount of red tape facing companies. Some regulation is undeniably needed with the ‘right kind’ leading to economic benefits – this is in contrast to needless bureaucracy at the moment which can prevent companies from growing, innovating and creating jobs.  Businesses from across the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce network consistently tell us they are spending time dealing with unnecessary regulations that should be spent growing their companies.

This regulatory change, whilst welcome, will only apply to the regulations currently deemed ‘in scope’ of the current framework. This effectively means that a large chunk of regulations affecting business, including EU regulations, are excluded from the process. For this system to work and be successful the relevant regulations must be in scope of the system.

We will be working with the British Chambers of Commerce to ensure that Michael Fallon understand how important Norfolk businesses feel out the need to reduce unnecessary red tape and have invited him to Norfolk next year to feed back what difference he has made.  

As we all know, it is the season of reflection and of new resolutions. We on the Great Yarmouth Chamber Council would like to take this opportunity to share our thoughts for 2013.

Firstly by way of reflection, in 2012 there were continuing issues of re-energising Great Yarmouth’s retail and business communities. Of particular note, as we were setting about our Christmas preparations, we were all confronted with the issues of two of the banks seeking approval to relocate from Hall Quay into the centre of the town. Sometimes vitriolic views were expressed in the Mercury, BBC Radio Norfolk, in the Council Chamber and elsewhere, as to the merits, or otherwise of this request. Suffice to say, those who were against the proposal won the day, although I doubt that will be the last we will hear on the issue.

The point however is, whichever side of the argument you choose to support, everybody has a shared interest and that is to see a vibrant town centre, devoid of empty shops and a general air of depression. In 2013, the Great Yarmouth Chamber Council will do everything it can to ensure this is achieved.

There is a continuing challenge to the retail sector and the truth is, it’s not going to get better for Great Yarmouth, or elsewhere, any time soon. You may have noticed that, in post-Christmas sales reports, nationally retail sales over the festive season rose by 1% when compared to 2012. However and more significantly, on-line sales rose by 18%. This coupled with the general malaise brought about by the recession, over and above Great Yarmouth’s own well publicised problems, means that is going to continue to be tough for the retail sector for a long time to come. I encourage you all to lend as much support as you can, by encouraging and patronising local businesses wherever possible.

Secondly and as a New Year resolution, I hope that we all become more optimistic and we will finally see some progress in attracting new business into the town, primarily as a result of the offshore renewable sector. With the recently announced decision to seek consents approval to develop and install the first phase of 325 turbines on the EAOW One development, we all hope to finally see significant inward investments both into the town and the port to support this project.

As reported in previous columns in the Mercury, the town continues to face significant challenges but assuming that in the short term, our future is only secured by a dualled Acle straight, or a third river crossing, despite recent and resurgent efforts to talk up these projects, will prove unrealistic. Our strategies must be based upon what we already have and not what may or may not happen in the future.

The future of Great Yarmouth is in our own hands. Here at the Great Yarmouth Chamber Council and for 2013, we will shortly be commencing our new initiative, our “Customer Care Programme”. We will be re-doubling our efforts to engage with all of the existing and hopefully expanded future membership, to better understand your business issues and offer support and guidance to help you maximise your potential. Our expectation is that more energised local companies will pull together, share your experiences and collectively improve business confidence in the town.

To plagiarise the famous Lord Kitchener poster: “Your Town Needs You” and as a call to action, representatives from your Chamber Council will be in contact with you shortly to help and to encourage you to grasp every opportunity that 2013 will bring.

Despite the contact drip of challenging economic news, Norfolk businesses are definitely becoming more open for business.  For example from the start of the year there has been a significant increase in activity and engagement relating to our events.

Since the new year over 150 attended a Chamber bowling event and close to 200 attend our MPs event on how to help Norfolk’s young people followed by a sold out Norwich networking breakfast on the Norwich BID last week.

The biggest change however can be seen with the willingness of our larger members to make themselves available to meet with smaller businesses with the prospect of doing business. This is a marked change from last year when the willingness was there but there was hesitancy due to the economic prospects.  It seems that the business community are feeling more robust and wanting to buy from local suppliers as much as they can.

Earlier in the month supported by the Chamber,  enterpriseGY held a Meet the Buyer Dinner where Great Yarmouth suppliers and buyers moved around the dinner table between 6 courses meeting and doing business. Much business was also done between the suppliers as well as with identified buyers, as of course all businesses are buyers and sellers.  The only complaint to the event was that everyone ate too much!

The same theme is visible with the Chamber’s Opportunity 2013 event at NCFC this Thursday. Last year many buyers especially from the private sector were hesitant to commit to being at the event as they were not sure of the opportunities were for taking on additional suppliers. This year we have 40 significant buyers from sectors such as energy, food, construction, public sector lined up under one roof and ready to do business with local suppliers. Due to the number of buyers we have been able to increase the number of appointments per suppliers making it a really valuable opportunity.  We also expect significant business to be done between the suppliers because as you know when you get two businesses in a room together business will be done.

Another change which has been noticeable is the willingness of organisations involved in networking to work together, which of course makes perfect sense as they are born networkers. At Opportunities 2013 we have invited networking and membership organisation from across Norfolk to take part in a mega lunchtime networking event between their buyer’s appointments, workshops and exhibition visiting. There is always a murmur of complaint that there are too many different networking events going on but choice is good as with any sector activity they are all have slightly different aims apart from doing business! This event will bring over 13 different types of networking organisations and their members together which should be lively and great fun so do come along.

The serious side of this increased willingness to engage by businesses from across Norfolk apart from improving the local economy and job prospects is that the closer we work together we more we can achieve to improve situation of  our young people which is being discussed a lot this Apprenticeship Week.

For more details on Opportunties 2013 this Thursday 14 March at NCFC please go to www.norfolkchamber.co.uk

I have been reflecting a lot this week on the role of government, particularly in the wake of our network’s BCC Economic Forecast (which predicts anaemic growth of 0.6% for the UK in 2013) as well as the ‘stay-the-course’ speech delivered by the Prime Minister to an audience on Thursday. 

I’ve come to the following three conclusions:

1) We are approaching a tipping point at which the absence of substantial growth in the economy could make deficit reduction not just difficult, but impossible. In many respects, the government is now in the last chance saloon, and needs to knuckle down and deliver on all the previous promises it has made. Hope is not a strategy!

2) Both ministers and civil servants are at fault for the lacklustre delivery of pro-growth measures over the last two and a half years. Ministers pay attention until announcements are made, then lose interest. Civil servants with little experience of delivery then fail to deliver anything of substance – e.g. diggers on the ground for infrastructure projects or a step-change in business lending. Ministers then re-package and re-announce policies, only for the vicious cycle to begin again.

3) Finally, the government has ducked some really hard choices. They face a benefits bill of nearly £200bn, some 30% of what the government spends each year. They have ring-fenced additional areas of spending robotically without considering their efficiency or effectiveness. Yet ministers run scared of reducing perks for the well-off or looking at cost efficiencies in ring-fenced services – even though the money saved could be invested in maintaining roads, building houses or other instant confidence-boosting and job-creating schemes.

So do watch out for our national view via the British Chambers of Commerce ‘s Budget proposals next week which we have input into. I’m not irretrievably gloomy, as I see amazing Chamber businesses doing incredible things all the time. But Westminster and Whitehall must, unequivocally, play their part.  

At a time when the Chancellor is finalising his budget,  I would  urge our local MPs to encourage the Government to deliver the pro-growth measures already promised, including non-fiscal measures.

The feedback from Chamber members is that they welcome the Government’s rhetoric around access to finance, reducing the burden of employment regulation, investing in infrastructure and planning reform but are yet to feel the full benefits of these on the ground.

Key actions we would like to see is the Business Bank get off the drawing board; the infrastructure guarantee scheme being opened up further; timescales for major schemes accelerated; planning liberalism delivered; and reform of the labour market to become a more tangible reality for business.

The British Chambers of Commerce have collated pro-business measures which the Government have committed to, their claimed progress and what we feel is the business reality and we urge our local MPs to work with us to make them a reality to assist our Norfolk economy.

I would like to share with you the Chamber network’s March 2013 economic outlook  based on data released during February.

The bottom line is that ultimately February’s data releases mirrors our view that the UK economy will improve slowly over the medium term and entering a new recession is unlikely at this stage.

However, any recovery will be slow by historical standards. Although the downgrade in the UK’s credit rating is unlikely to have a significant impact on the UK economy, it will increase the pressure on the Chancellor to use the Budget to deliver measures to boost growth.

Key headlines:

• Economic growth for 2012 revised up, but the outlook for the UK economy weakens • Jobs market improves once again, but public finances remain in a poor state • BCC cuts economic growth forecast for 2013 and 2014, but 2015 revised up

Full details can be found below