Campaigns
The BFC has an ongoing policy to develop positioning papers on a wide range of activities affecting the furniture industry, either in accordance with its 2010 Five year Strategic Plan or in response to government initiatives/announcements.
CURRENT CAMPAIGNS
February 2012
Biomass Subsidies
"The members of The British Furniture Confederation have agreed that the effect of the subsidies granted to the Energy industry for the burning of woody biomass on the price of the key raw material for our industry is so important an issue for such a broad spectrum of the industry that the Confederation should campaign for a rethink.
October 2010
BFC Position Paper - Bank Loans
The BFC believe there is a problem with loans to small and medium sized business which might be easy to solve.
In many cases Banks are asking for personal guarantees from proprietors seeking business finance. Where this finance is not guaranteed by Government, the Banks, we believe are entitled to ask for such guarantees although one may ask why this seems to be necessary in so many cases.
October 2010
BFC Position Paper - Exporting
We greatly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s policy to bring to the teams in British Embassies a greater level of expertise and commitment to the promotion of UK trade and commerce. The furniture industry has exports of £1B but believes more can be done with the active assistance of Government.
October 2010
BFC Position Paper - Government purchasing
Reducing the cost of Public Procurement and improving UK Manufacturing
The BFC supports the requirement to reduce the cost to central and local government in the purchase of products and services. We believe there are improvements that can be made in this process that will help achieve this and may also improve the performance of suppliers to government. We also support the Glover Committee Report, which recommended a single portal to promote contracts from the public sector.
October 2010
BFC Position Paper - Proposal for Furniture Advisory Board
The furniture industry has a factory gate output of £8.3b (2009), employs directly 119,000 people in 8655 companies. The industry is spread all over the United Kingdom and in none of the RDAs has it been recognised as a “priority sector”.
The purpose of this paper is to set out, in brief the argument for a national body, perhaps called the Furniture Advisory Board (FAB) to advise government on the disbursement of whatever funds might in future be available for the UK furniture industry from the EU and UK government.