28 March, 2024

‘Together we stand – Divided we fall’

02 April, 2015

BFPA CEO Chris Buxton emphasises the importance of representative and trade bodies working together in the best interests of their members and the wider UK Industry.


The UK Trade Association Forum (the representative body for trade associations) estimates that across the UK alone there is something of the order of 3500 trade associations. This excludes the vast array of membership institutes and other not-for-profit representative bodies. The membership services offered by these bodies is wide and varied but without doubt, their primary purpose should be to provide a single voice for their industry and to engage with the regulatory authorities to either reduce the burden of inappropriate and disproportionate regulation or to champion formal processes and best practice against which their industry can operate and therefore raise standards of either quality, health & safety or, ideally, both. They should also provide an appropriate range of commercially focussed services designed to help members to promote their businesses either directly via tailored channels to market such as events and publications or indirectly through the provision of tools that ultimately help companies to improve their ‘bottom-line’, in short – to help them to sell more products and services.

The variation in trade associations being able to realise this worthy aspiration is as diverse as the variation in size, quality, the level of commitment and the skills amongst the staff within these many organisations. Perhaps most significantly; success or failure is often determined by the available funds and resources.

Very large organisations such as the National Farmers Union (NFU) or the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) have the luxury of large budgets which in turn facilitate the provision of adequate and skilled staffing. When they engage with Government they speak on behalf of large numbers of companies, many of them blue chip, and many employing large numbers of people, all of whom carry a political vote and can therefore attract the attention of politicians and regulators. But what of the plethora of smaller trade associations, many of whom comprise of little more than one full-time member of staff and an assistant? The ability of these organisations to meet the above referenced aspirations in terms of membership services is very limited indeed and the likelihood of them being heard in the corridors of Whitehall, (even if they do manage to secure 20 minutes with the Minister), is essentially zero. They simply don’t have the size or resource to influence the regulatory or more specifically, the political landscape.

Many of the latter category are quite content operating as they do as little more than a focal point for what may be the occasional members meeting and production of a ‘budget members’ magazine’, often produced at a domestic level by the usually part-time secretary on his or her home printer. These micro organisations are never going to change the world for their members but may be quite content with their lot.

Core of the representative community

Between these two extremes is the ‘lions share’ of trade associations who are valiantly committed to their work, invariably operating with very few staff and regularly making two and two stretch to five if not six. These organisations are the core of the representative community in the UK and are to be applauded for the work that they do in trying to improve the lives of their members, often against very challenging odds. They often produce good quality publications for their members; they often manage successful trade shows and occasionally they even win a lobbying campaign on behalf of their members but how much more effective they would be if they could bring down the partisan barriers that they so often erect to protect their own interests and partner with their sister associations who are invariably trying to achieve the same goals with equally depleted resources?

In 2012 Lord Heseltine was commissioned by the Government to produce an independent report on how best to secure growth in the UK economy. The result was a document entitled ‘No stone unturned in the pursuit of growth’. In it Lord Heseltine set out a comprehensive economic plan to improve the UK’s ability to create wealth. He made the case for a major rebalancing of responsibilities for economic development between central and local government, and between government and the private sector. Within the report was a section dedicated to the potential role of trade associations, the basis of which was that the trade association world was too fragmented, disparate and partisan. He was calling for trade associations to begin working together more closely for the good of their members.

At an earlier stage in my career, I spent two years on secondment from my then employer BAE Systems, to the UK Cabinet Office. The crux of my role was to engage with my colleagues in industry in order to help reduce the burden of inappropriate and burdensome regulation in the manufacturing sector. Indeed, this experience later spawned my move from industry into the trade association world. In order to engage with industry I had to operate through the representative bodies for those sectors; the trade associations. Those industries that I could help were those which (a) could speak with a single coherent voice, and (b), those that represented a sufficiently large proportion of the voting populous to attract the attention of my political and ministerial colleagues in Government.

Common sense approach

The reasons as to how and why UK trade associations are so slow to embrace this common sense approach, (which incidentally is widely adopted by our European cousins to great effect), are beyond the space constraints of this article but the message is clear – UK trade associations must begin to co-operate more closely. By doing so they will realise economies of scale, improved services for their members, a more effective lobbying voice and an ability to grow and develop the best interests of UK industry. I would submit that to fail in this endeavor not only betrays the altruism that is the basis of the not-for-profit sector but is tantamount to failing in our duty to our members. Together we stand – divided we fall.

Note: Chris Buxton is a keen champion of mutually beneficial collaborative working. He was instrumental in developing the Engineering & Machinery Alliance, a group of 12 trade associations in the Engineering sector and the creation of the PPMA Group, a body of what was several trade associations in the Machinery, Automation and Robotics sector.




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