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During the past year, retra has recorded significant achievements representing and promoting its members' interests. Mark Hayward, retra's Chief Executive, reviews the most important ones.
Why do independent electrical retailers join a trade association like retra? Why, having joined, do they retain their membership every year? The main reason is that retra membership is a 'value for money' proposition. The costs of joining retra, and of renewing membership annually, are outweighed by the financial savings that can be made by accessing some of retra's direct services and benefits.
Having benefited from retra's direct services, members also begin to appreciate other retra activities, such as retra's role in representing and promoting members' interests in connection with legislation and to the Government. The past year has seen some significant achievements.
WEEE Directive
retra's focus throughout long and detailed WEEE Directive implementation discussions with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was to ensure that members had a choice as to how to fulfil their key legal obligation under the Directive – facilitating the take back of household WEEE from customers. retra argued that its members should have a choice to either provide a WEEE take back service to customers or, if they did not wish to do this, offset this obligation by joining a 'retail compliance scheme'. This argument for choice was accepted by the DTI and set out in the WEEE Regulations. retra also negotiated a beneficial rate for its members to join the Distributor Take Back Scheme (as the 'retail compliance scheme' is called).
Sunday Trading and Leasehold Reform
During the year retra campaigned in connection with two key issues – Sunday Trading and Leasehold Reform.
As part of a broad coalition of small business organisations, trade unions, churches and pressure groups, retra successfully persuaded the Government not to further relax the current Sunday Trading regime in England and Wales. Had this proceeded, it would have benefited the large/supermarket retailers and worked to the disadvantage of smaller retailers, including retra members. Many retra members assisted in this campaigning work by contacting their MPs using the template letters that retra provided.
retra also actively supported the British Retail Consortium-led campaign on leasehold reform – the 'Rent Monthly' campaign. The purpose of 'Rent Monthly' was to persuade landlords in the public and private sectors to accept monthly payment terms, as opposed to payment quarterly in arrears, from their leasehold tenants. The campaign was backed by eight trade associations representing 14,000 businesses that operate from more than 40,000 retail outlets throughout the UK. More than five hundred local authority landlords across the country subsequently agreed to adopt rent monthly terms. This brought direct benefits to a number of retra members. The 'Rent Monthly' campaign is continuing in 2007.
Better Regulation
retra has been actively engaged in the Government's developing 'Better Regulation' agenda for small businesses. retra's focus, which has been unrelenting, has been to ensure that SME businesses, including its members, are fairly and proportionately treated under the UK's business regulatory environment. In its consultation submissions to the Government, retra has consistently promoted deregulation – removing regulations from the statute book; consolidation – bringing those regulations that are necessary together in a consolidated form, and rationalisation – the removal of inconsistent and/or overlapping regulations from the statute book. The publication across Whitehall of Departmental 'Simplification Plans' – specific promises identifying over 500 ways in which 'red tape' will be reduced – provides retra with an increased means by which the Government can be held to account.
Representing members' interests is a never ending task and a continual challenge for a trade association like retra that has a small HQ staff team. The work has to be prioritised and managed flexibly. The priorities sometimes need to be changed quickly. Nothing, of course, would be done so well or so speedily without the commitment of those members of retra who take part in its governance. These members take on a heavy burden on behalf of others who reap the benefits of their work and engagement.
