Director General’s Report
Robert Keen BIFA Director General
As you will read elsewhere in this report, 2021 was a year during which BIFA continued to negotiate the combined effects of the pandemic and EU-Exit in our efforts to deliver a number of positive outcomes for Members.
public both the significance and magnitude of modern supply chains, as well as highlighting how vulnerable they can be. It also put the precarious balancing act of supply chain management into perspective and hopefully leads to a deeper appreciation from the consumer for end products, and the essential role of the freight industry in delivering them. More than four years after the referendum vote to leave the European Union, EU Exit became a reality in 2021. BIFA’s Policy and Compliance team spent 2021 providing constant advice to BIFA Members, analysing the changes in legislation and understanding the developing legislative impacts on a real time basis. There was a huge increase in communication with BIFA Members. An undoubted highlight was the webinar to hundreds of BIFA Members in the Autumn regarding the 2022 changes that were due. We received many plaudits and BIFA Members seem to have been very satisfied with the quality of service provided.
The IT requirements of all staff were upgraded so that we are all capable of fully remote working and, during the year, we ensured that BIFA’s compliance with relevant Health & Safety routines and regulations was fully up to date. Early in 2021, a prominent trade journal repeated the oft discredited old line that the traditional forwarding profession is doomed in the face of competition from digital platforms and container shipping lines investing in logistics service providers. Whilst we rebuked the writer for not providing a balanced view, it was a view that continued to gain airtime during the year. When October brought headlines that Christmas might be cancelled as a result of the ongoing supply chain challenges, it gave BIFA the opportunity to explain how its Members are preoccupied in finding solutions rather than indulging in scare-mongering headline writing. Both gave BIFA the opportunity to reinforce the message that its Members and freight forwarders across the world, that are responsible for managing the supply chains that underpin global trade, are moving hell and high water to address the issues. The crunch in global supply chains in 2021 was an opportunity for the industry to demonstrate to the general
recruit new Members using social media and direct approaches. A new edition of the BIFA Standard Trading Conditions (STC) was published in early 2021, as a consequence of the UK’s exit from the EU and in reflection of changes to Direct/Indirect Representation with HMRC. These replaced the previous version revised in 2017 and BIFA emphasised to Members the importance of ensuring the effective incorporation of the BIFA STC into their contracts with their customers. Staffing of the secretariat was also strengthened in 2021. Following the extension of the Government grant to train more Customs intermediaries to June 2021, as well as the greater workload that came with meeting the administrational requirements of increased online training, we at first used a casual worker, and then recruited Sharon Sampeys as a training administrator in August 2021. That led to more orderly processes in office administration being achieved in the year. Nezda Leigh also joined BIFA full time having previously been a contractor and we recruited Natalie Pitts from November to head up a newly created communications department. In 2021, the remaining upstairs offices at Redfern House were refurbished, and we made a substantial IT investment to upgrade our system to a cloud-based arrangement.
For me, of many notable achievements in 2021, BIFA led an education programme to help Members encourage and prepare their European customers that export to the UK for the 1 January 2022 deadline for full customs declarations and promoted the need for everyone to realise and understand that the UK government was serious about imposing border controls from the start of the new year. With industry promotion one of BIFA’s key roles, another notable achievement in 2021 was the trade association’s launch of a campaign to encourage its Members to work with schools to promote careers in logistics, forwarding and the supply chain. This was aimed at encouraging students to consider such careers as the first part of a wider industry inspiration programme that will help Members to highlight to students the available routes when making career choices, identify the core values and behaviours required when applying for jobs, and provide advice that may encourage young people to broaden their horizons. This also saw us sign a partnership with Think Logistics. At the end of the year, BIFA membership was the highest ever at 1566 (BIFA finished 2020 with 1467 Members, 2019 with 1431 Members and 2018 with 1366) and that achievement certainly benefited from the unstinting efforts of Sarah Milton to
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bifa.org | BIFA Annual Report & Accounts 2021
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