BIFAlink January 2022

Policy & Compliance

BIFAlink

www.bifa.org

UK launches discussion paper about the Single Trade Window

A policy discussion paper on the UK Single Trade Window (STW) was launched by the UK government on 1 December 2021. The government has committed £180 million to build the STW, which aims to streamline trader interactions with border agencies. Currently the programme is at the design stage and government is consulting with trade as to what services and functions the new STW will offer. At its core, the STW offers a single data entry point allowing traders to lodge standardised information to fulfil all import, export and transit-related regulatory requirements. The diagram above on the left represents the current situation, with data (very often the same) being submitted individually to multiple agencies. The second diagram illustrates the proposed situation whereby data is submitted once through the portal and relayed to the appropriate agencies. The STW has certain key principles and features regarding data and its sharing: • The first is as detailed above, that standardised data has to be input only once to the single portal. • The onus is put on government to facilitate sharing of the correct data amongst border authorities and agencies. The discussion paper highlights some quick benefits, but other advantages are likely to take much longer to achieve

• It eliminates the need for the user to submit the same data multiple times.

information which is then re-used by another party, for example a freight forwarder, but is later found to be incorrect – who then is responsible and has legal liability? Looking at the policy discussion paper it is clear that some of the improvements could be implemented relatively quickly. However, there are longer term benefits that will take much longer to achieve, so in all probability a staged approach should be adopted. Whilst BIFA will represent Members’ views to government, we have repeatedly explained to them that it is important to discuss specific technical issues with those who do the job on a daily basis. If you are interested in shaping the UK’s border beyond 2025, you can read the discussion paper at www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk- single-trade-window-discussion-paper

Whilst this programme does provide considerable opportunities to improve the capture and use of data at the frontier, there are potentially complex issues to resolve. As many Members have noted, this will mean that government departments will firstly have to improve how they work together and with trade. Also, the data will have to be submitted in a standardised format; Customs is making additional use of the World Customs Organisations (WCO) data model, but other departments use different data models. Undoubtedly there will be legal complexities, that will require additional legislation and some commercial sensitivities will have to be overcome. Also, there are concerns regarding scenarios where one trader may input some

January 2022

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