Meeting Of BPF Chairmen Sees Launch Of Political Contact Programme

During a recent meeting of the Chairmen of the BPF’s Business Groups and Central Committees, BPF President, Mike Boswell, launched a political contact programme designed to raise the profile of the Plastics Industry in national and local political circles.

‘Each member firm is being asked to contact their local MP and to invite him or her to their plant ‘, said Mike Boswell.  ‘We have prepared a document describing the economic impact of the UK Plastics Industry and its key strategic themes. It provides a great opportunity for member firms to describe their contribution to the wider industry to local stakeholders. We have identified the industry’s skill’s shortage, the precarious energy supply situation, the low level of bank lending to SMEs and support for the construction sector as areas of possible discussion. With a general election looming now is the right time to state our needs as a sector.’

The meeting, chaired by Mike Boswell involved some thirteen chairmen including distinguished BPF Gold Medal winners, Roger Mottram and Greg Hammond, the chairmen respectively of the BPF’s Vinyls and Masterbatch and Technical Compounds Groups.

BPF’s Director General , Philip Law, said ‘This annual meeting has become embedded in the BPF’s programme and aims to promote cross fertilisation and best practice approaches to industry issues between diverse sectoral Groups.  This maintains the coherence of the BPF and strengthens the BPF’s role as the single voice of the Plastics Industry.’

The Chairmen identified several priorities for future cross-fertilisation: the need to increase the awareness of plastics among primary and secondary school children, particularly with an eye to the infiltration of primary schools by campaigning groups; the need to influence the careers advice given to school-leavers; the preparation of educational materials to inform young people about plastics; the use of short DVD format films to convey specific messages; and the growing role of social media tools in spreading industry’s messages.
The meeting provided an opportunity for the Chairmen of BPF Central Expert Committees which treat ‘horizontal’  themes of importance to the whole industry, to brief the leaders of the BPF sector groups on key developments. Chairman of Product Safety, Chris Howick, elaborated on the evolution of the REACH Regulation and Chairman of Industrial Health and Safety, Mike Jones, provided an update on the Plastics Industry strategy to improve levels of health and safety via its SIMPL (Safety in the Manufacturing of Plastics) programme.

Mike Boswell also took the opportunity to advise the Chairmen of the  creation of a BPF Education and Skills Committee, supported by Cogent, which would identify skills gaps and needs and lobby for resources to fill them. This will hold its first meeting on January 27th 2015.  Additionally he announced the ring fencing of a fund to provide financial support for educational and training projects. He said that a further Central Expert Committee on the Environment would be invoked to deal with some emerging issues such as the role of the plastics industry in a ‘circular economy’ and plastics in the oceans.
 

For all media enquiries, BPF logos and images please contact Laura Hindley, Communications and Industrial Issues Executive on [email protected] or 0207 457 5043
Notes for editors:

The British Plastics federation (BPF) is the UK trade association for the plastics industry – representing the whole supply chain including polymer producers, distributors, additives suppliers, machinery manufacturers, processors and recyclers.