BAPC Leader Summer 2021

SUMMER 2021 — BAPC LEADER 12 Brendan Perring, Chairman of the BAPC analyses the current state of the print economy and how the Association is working hard to protect businesses through direct Government lobbying. The BAPC will keep fighting for print The really big issue many print businesses face that were highly exposed to the hospitality, retail, events, leisure and office sectors is that the Furlough Scheme and the range of other support devices only slows down their move towards insolvency. Although Furlough for example supports their staff and prevents them from making them redundant artificially, it does not assist with the very serious challenge that their overheads of rent, manufacturing equipment leasing, utilities, debt repayments, business rates, tax and so forth must still be paid sooner or later – and yet their revenue income on average is now down to around 60 percent of pre-covid levels when taken as a mean across our 8,500 businesses. SME’s bear the brunt If you segment out SME print businesses in metropolitan city centres, around 2,000 businesses and 30,000 jobs, they are now down to an average of 60% lost revenue in the last year across the UK. This segment is the beating heart of our supply chain and is the most at risk. The Furlough Scheme, the myriad of loan schemes and regional support grants will keep them in stasis and eek out their funds a little while longer, but hundreds of businesses simply cannot survive long-termwithout a specific, targeted grant to assist them meet their debts and overheads and remain solvent. This is because the vast majority have burned through all their reserves to keep going over the last year – and so while before they good keep staggering along through a combination of reserves, furlough, and CBIL/Bounce Back loans – this cash has now largely gone and been spent to try and preserve the business, without any additional relief in excess demand recovery to really get their cash flow going again. This is why the IPIA has been working hard to advocate directly to the Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy the need to create long-term schemes that can help these once healthy businesses bridge their finance gaps and get back on their feet. Green shoots There are some very promising signs for the top end of the SME sector of print businesses and medium to large sized operations over the last six weeks that had diversified into areas such as direct mail printing and outbound marketing for retail businesses moving online, as well as significantly expanding their eCommerce offering or moving into areas such as large-format graphics. The most recent relaxation of restrictions and new tranche of support mechanisms will provide enough extra help to see them make it through, albeit at a reduced staff compliment and the reduction of the business size overall. These include the Coronavirus Restart Grant – offering £6,000 to those businesses with a retail arm to reopen safely; the Recovery Loan Scheme – seeing 80 percent Government backed loans from £25 thousand to £10m pounds and asset finance from £1,000; the Super Deduction tax scheme – covering expenditure incurred from 1 April 2021, until the end of March 2023, and sees companies able to claim 130 percent capital allowances on qualifying plant and machinery investments; the Kickstart Scheme – which sees the Government pay you for Brendan Perring, Chairman of the BAPC, has been collating views from the print industry and relaying business intelligence to the Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy since the start of the Pandemic Powered by Covid-19 & BREXIT Business Impact Survey Focus Group Members Response: 152 The BAPC has run a series of industry surveys, which it has used to feedback to Government to assist with policy development