Deal Or No Deal? Planning For Brexit

We are hurtling towards March 29th and like me you are probably still unsure what Brexit means for our country, our industry and indeed, our respective businesses.

Currently the industry is contingency planning. A recent Construction Leadership Council conference addressed how the industry should prepare for a No Deal Brexit by putting the spotlight on some of the main issues.

It’s obvious that a No Deal would be economically challenging in the medium term. But what does it mean for those of us running scaffolding companies? Of the themes highlighted at the CLC conference, this is what I think our businesses need to consider:

Dynamics of your market

A No Deal Brexit puts the already conservative market growth forecasts in a more challenging light – impacting us more strongly through 2020.

Medium term uncertainly is affecting decision-making and market sentiment. Concerns focus on the potential impact of slow movement of imports, tariffs and stockpiling, layered on to an already palpable skills shortage affecting our supply chains.

In reality it could be different for many of us depending on our existing pipeline of work and the type of clients we have.

Work with your clients to understand the potential impact on the sectors you work within – private or public residential, infrastructure, commercial, all the above… There will be areas of investment, but programmes will inevitably be affected.

Availability of materials

For many of us running scaffolding businesses, we may be less impacted by the ease of imports. With many materials sourced from outside the EU, and our main materials used on site not being consumable, we are in a better position that many other trades. But as a largely reactive trade, we may be held up on site by other trades in the supply chain.

The good news from Port of Tilbury – the country’s third largest ports group, is that dealing with non-EU cargo is not new. Many of the changes needed to keep goods flowing through ports can therefore be anticipated and planned for.

However, it is worth engaging your own supply chain to see how they are planning for Brexit. Timber, for example is an obvious material sourced from the EU that will be affected with some sources already citing price fluctuations due to stockpiling.

Retaining skilled workers

This is an issue we need to address regardless of Brexit, so anything that impacts availability of skilled labour from any country is a concern.

For those of us with valued members of staff from the EU, we need to encourage them to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme that will protect current EU citizens. As an employer we can direct them to information and reassure them of their current rights to work here in the UK.

For the future, there are two proposed routes for categorizing workers from the EU post Brexit. One is the skilled workers route where there will be a qualification and salary threshold, and a cap on numbers.

The second is the temporary workers route that will apply to all levels of worker. However, there will only be a 12-month stay permitted with a 12 month cooling off period.

So Deal or No Deal, we can only prepare the best we can. Our focus needs to be maintaining business as usual for our staff and our clients. But it’s certainly a time when the industry needs to work together and collaborate on any short to medium term solutions that gets us through this transition period.

Either way, the UK is very much open for business.