County bosses to meet bankers
Wednesday 21st January 2009, 2:07PM GMT.
Shropshire business leaders will meet with the major banks next week to discuss ways in which county firms can be helped through the economic crisis.
The meeting has been called by the county council-backed Shropshire Business Board and will be held at the Shirehall on January 30. Bank of England officials are also expected to attend the meeting.
A report to the council cabinet says the meeting is a response to one of the immediate problems facing businesses – the difficulty and increased expense they face in borrowing money.
“The purpose of the meeting is to ensure that the banks are fully aware of the issues facing Shropshire’s businesses and to have a discussion on how the banks could respond through amending their policies,” says the report.
“As Shropshire’s economy is predominantly made up of small and medium sized enterprises, it is crucial that they receive all the advice and help available to them during the recession.”
The report, which details the council’s response to economic downturn, says the Government is launching measures to improve the availability of finance such businesses, or SMEs.
This will include a new Small Business Finance Scheme to support up to £1 billion of bank lending.
The report says that the council has already started to put in place a number of measures to support the local community and businesses.
“Although the council can do relatively little to prevent the recession and credit crunch impacting on Shropshire, it can take action to mitigate its effects,” adds the report.
About £94 million is spent annually with local providers, suppliers and contractors.
The value of work being placed with Shropshire businesses, and the number of Shropshire companies being invited to tender for council contracts, will be monitored and officers will look at increasing the opportunities for local providers to tender.
The report is being presented to cabinet next Wednesday.
By Dave Morris
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“County Council backed Shropshire Business Board”? Sounds like another Quango to me.
This article made me find out more and indeed, my suspicions are well founded:
“Invest in Shropshire is a partnership of [6] local authorities, based within the County Council’s Economic Regeneration service”, says their website.
Er, no mention of any actual businesses as partners, so what it seems to indicate is that hard struggling businesses are being represented by tax-payer funded public servants who probably don’t have the day to day stress of actually running a commercial activity in the face of nonchalant bankers.
I always assumed that Chambers of Commerce, traditionally acted as representatives of businesses, so where are they? Is this another of those scenarios where multiple private and public agencies will be repeating each others’ work?
Nevertheless, I’m glad to see that the council cabinet and SBB are confident that they have more idea about what businesses need than the businesses themselves, and even more happier that they feel that they have the clout and credibility to get the banks to lend to Shropshire’s SME’s after billions of ££££ from the government hasn’t really persuaded them to do so so far. No doubt that Shire Hall cabinet will also do a far better job than Gordon Brown’s cabinet have managed so far. It might also be interesting to see a list of all the influential business leaders who will be socking it to the banks at the meeting and getting them to open their funding channels up on behalf of their business brethren and sisters.
Easy to be cynical I suppose, (but it comes naturally when I read about ever-increasing public spending), especially as no-one asked me my opinion as a small Shropshire business and I’d never heard of the SBB before, (created in July 2008, I believe); but if they had done so, I’d have pointed out that banks are probably more than fully aware of the problems facing Shropshire’s businesses, but why would you think that they really care?
This smacks more of council job-justification and I smell gravy – what platform does the Shire Hall train leave from?
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how much are they going to claim on expenses then, bet its not pennies.
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