Director General’s Foreword Steve Parker
Welcome to BIFA’s Annual Report 2024, summarising work done to help members address the issues they faced during the year.
Development of our training programmes continued, and we partnered with third party providers and educational bodies. We started a project to offer all-inclusive training as part of the membership fee in 2025. The launch of BIFAlink TV in July to provide a daily dose of industry information helped to enhance our communications work; supporting BIFAlink, email newsletters, our website and social media channels. A key position in the ITN Business programme ’Transforming Logistics: Precision and Purpose’ brought more awareness of BIFA’s role to a wider audience in a year that saw us start to review our Standard Trading Conditions, with the aim of introducing a revised set in 2025. I thank staff within the BIFA Secretariat; and members who volunteer to be part of our Policy and Regional Groups, for the work that they did in 2024. That work helped ensure that 2024 was a good year for BIFA, with a clear strategy and significant momentum for all areas of our work.
The association remained strong. Although our expenditure increased during the year as a result of a significant expansion of the services we deliver to members, we are financially stable. Globally, we saw the ongoing impact of conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East, the latter leading to additional cost and delays to shipping. In the UK, a new Government was elected with 334 new MPs, and a budget that raised cost to industry. Work continued on events such as the Freight Service Awards, Multimodal 2024, Business Leaders Forums, and increased regional member meetings. Webinars were arranged, often in partnership with others, to deliver advice on key issues. BIFA’s corporate membership increased again to a record number of companies, as did membership of our Young Forwarder Network, and its event schedule. The election to our Board of three directors with much experience and insight enhanced our leadership team.
National Chair’s Foreword Charles Hogg 2024 was my first full year as national chair and a good one for BIFA. Corporate membership increased again, as did Interaction between the secretariat, representative groups and
members with more attending our regional meetings and policy groups. Our Training function developed as did our work to represent and promote the sector and the work done by BIFA members. 2024 ended with a sense of excitement about what was in store for 2025 when Keith Baguley becomes BIFA’s national chair.
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BIFA Annual Report & Accounts 2024 | bifa.org
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