Trade Association Update: March

After the PM’s pragmatic, common-sense roadmap to easing, we are able to breathe a sigh of relief as businesses now have a starting point.

Trade Association Council meeting takeaways

Thank you to all those who were able to join our Trade Association Council meeting with Tony Danker, CBI Director-General. Tony continues to praise the relationship the CBI has with our Trade Association members and how highly engaged you are in these sessions.

2021 is a major year for climate action and an opportunity for the UK to lead this on the world stage. COP26 will be hosted in Glasgow this November and climate action will be a major discussion at G7 Summit taking place in June.

First on the agenda, CBI's Director of Infrastructure and Energy, Tom Thackray, discussed the upcoming opportunities with COP26, including CBI led events, Race to Zero campaign, Goal 13 Impact Platform, policy outputs and case studies. Megan Bulford provided us with an economic outlook for business with the top takeaway being GDP shrinking by 9.9% the sharpest contraction since 1709. However, with the restrictions gradually easing from Q2 and extra fiscal support this should enable a rebound in activity with the expectation of the economy to grow by 6% this year and 5.2% in 2022, regaining its pre-Covid level near the end of 2022.
Finally, Tony Danker addressed the PM’s roadmap, workplace testing and the vaccine passport, CBI’s budget asks and our post-Brexit stance.

Please reach out to myself to Talisha Manku if you want more information about how you can get involved with our upcoming COP26 opportunities.

Analysing the Chancellor's Spring Budget

Recorded last week, the CBI hosted a CBI @10am webinar analysing the Chancellor's Spring Budget. To continue to shape our conversations with government, we’d welcome your thoughts on the support packages announced. Please do send any feedback to the CBI's coronavirus support inbox.

The CBI has also created unpacked what the budget means for different areas including:

• Infrastructure and Energy

Director of Infrastructure and Energy Tom Thackray unpacks what the budget will mean, from a new Infrastructure Bank to net zero progress to financial support for hard-hit sectors like aviation.

• Regional Growth

Find out how the government have put levelling up at the heart of the Spring Budget and what it means for business.

• People and Skills

In the Budget, the Chancellor continued his pledge to support jobs and incentivise employer training as the UK begins its slow path to recovery.

• Innovation and Digital

Understand what the 2021 Budget means for businesses in terms of innovation and digital, from ‘Help to Grow’ vouchers through to the Future Fund: Breakthrough.

February events roundup

Diversity and Inclusion: How TAs can become D&I Leaders

This session focused on how we, as associations, can advocate for D&I to incite quicker change in creating a more diverse and inclusive industry, whilst looking at D&I with both an internal and external lens. We discussed CBI’s current D&I strategy, commercial BAME strategy and provided some practical guidance on how to achieve advocacy.

Key Takeaways:

• We are all on a journey towards creating a more diverse and inclusive industry.
• Data is key to setting accurate targets and creating achievable action plans.
• You need the support from leadership and the whole organisation to imbed D&I in your internal culture and truly become advocates.
• For smaller trade associations there is only so much you can do internally, focus on becoming D&I advocates to make change in your sector.
• As a leader you may not have the perspective of not belonging or feeling outcast from a group, but it is your responsibility to educate yourself as is it ultimately your responsibility to implement the changes which will have the biggest impact.

Becoming a signatory of Change the Race Ratio is a step on the journey towards making change happen. We are working with signatories in providing peer-support to develop targets and plans so this conversation can continue. We encourage you to share and advocate the necessity of becoming a signatory to your membership.

If you would like a copy of the presentation slides please reach out to Talisha.

CBI Economics

To assist you in building your own economic case, CBI Economics has put in place a series of products and services, aimed at helping you to estimate the cost of your policy ideas, understand their impact, research what world leading economic policy looks like or simply help you to articulate your issues through robust economic theory and evidence.

For more information or to discuss a project please reach out to either myself or Talisha to set up an introductory call.

Useful resources

• The CBI's Coronavirus Hub has all the information regarding COVID-19, including advice, guidance, and what your business can do to help.
  
  
• The CBI's UK Transition Hub has the most up to date developments regarding the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) and provides guidance on specific issues.

Both these hubs are accessible on our public site, so do feel free to signpost them to your members.

Have you had any changes within your team?

We are keen to hear your news about staffing changes so that we can update how we communicate with you accordingly. Please let myself or Talisha know.

Access to MyCBI is also open to any staff member in your organisation. With a wealth of resources and access to informative webinars do let your team know to use this valuable resource and check which opportunities and policy publications you can access.