Inverness Chamber of Commerce chief executive says how businesses can make their voices heard
Does your business have a problem that we can help you with? As the largest business membership organisation in the Highlands, one of the most important things we do for our members is to represent their interests to local and national governments.
Occasionally we do that for an individual company about a particular issue. Recently we manged to help a member who was having a small business grant withdrawn by one Scottish Government agency because they were following guidance which had been set by a different Scottish Government agency.
But more often we are lobbying on issues that affect large sections of our business community. The work we’ve done alongside the Inverness Courier to campaign for the dualling of the A9 is probably the most obvious and high profile of these.
• Community callout: You can sign up for our free newsletters sent directly to your inbox each day at 6.30am. We also have our new Nairnshire newsletters which are also free and arrive every Tuesday and Friday at 8am. Sign-up here.
Some other issues are best done behind closed doors. Our work encouraging our local public agencies to procure goods and services from local companies has the potential to make a real difference to our member businesses.
But our biggest impact is when we work with our colleagues at Scottish Chamber of Commerce (SCC) or British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) to influence national legislation. We were part of the group who achieved the U-turn on the Scottish Government’s well intentioned, but potentially disastrous, deposit return scheme.
At the moment we are working with both groups on the UK governments’ plans around employment rights.
As Liz Cameron from SCC says: “Employment rights should be good for employees and business and that means being practical and relevant to the workplace... Introducing employment rights from day one fails to take cognisance of the workplace reality where both employee and employer need to be able to be the right fit for each other and the role. Having probation periods are key... on both sides.”
Doing business in the Highlands comes with its own unique set of benefits and challenges and having the voice of Highland businesses heard at Holyrood and Westminster is essential. Through SCC and BCC, you can be sure that we’re making that happen.
Colin Marr is Inverness Chamber of Commerce’s chief executive.
