TO BE AVAILABLE ON THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE & INDUSTRY WEBSITE

MINUTES

Dorset Chamber of Commerce & Industry Council Meeting at 4.30pm Thursday 8th November, Chamber House

Present: ACTION Chris Slocock (CS), Ian Cambrook (IC), Ian Girling (IG), Nicola Newman (NN), Steve Bendell (SB), Tony Brown (TB), James Aiken-Smith (JAS), Julia Cohen (JC), Kimberley Davies, (KD), Chris Palmer, (CP), James Stelfox (JS), Simon West (SW), Paul Tansey (PT), (Board member),

and Vicki Hailes (VH), (minutes)

Dorset Chamber of Commerce & Industry will be shown as (DCCI) throughout the Minutes.

1. Welcome, Introductions & Apologies

(CS) welcomed everyone to the meeting before inviting table introductions. Apologies were received from James Lattimer (JL), Helen Stacey (HS), Mandy Holford, (MH), Paul Collins (PC) and Board members, Jason Gault, Steve Mills, and Liz Willingham.

(CS) then introduced Inspector Cheyne Marley and invited him to deliver his presentation

Presentation: 2

Business Sector Engagement, Inspector Cheyne Marley, – Business Engagement

Hub.

Cheyne began his presentation emphasising the importance of a strong business engagement strategy between the Dorset Police and local businesses. He stressed the importance of a close working relationship to ensure that all opportunities are explored in order to achieve one common goal.

He explained that the business community shares much of the crime-related issues experienced

by resident communities and that by working together and sharing problems, this would result in

an exchange of ideas. He said, therefore, communication was key amongst all parties.

(IG) asked about the issue of homelessness and the problems with aggressive begging and the impact on the community. Cheyne agreed this was having a negative impact on centre and other towns. He said this was an area where everyone should come together in

order to tackle this and it wasn’t the responsibility of just one body.

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(IC) asked about Cybercrime, and after a brief discussion amongst the council, it was agreed it would be useful if all scam mail was at least reported to Dorset police. This would afford Dorset Police the opportunity to record and ensuing patterns could be noted and subsequently shared

with the business community. It was agreed that a good platform for this would be the Dorset

Chamber Facebook page with scam alerts being posted and shared to all its members.

Cheyne finished his report saying that he was in post officially as of Monday and that he was looking forward to his continuing working relationship with the Dorset Chamber. (CS) thanked Cheyne for a very interesting presentation.

3. Minutes of the Ambassador Meeting held on 13th September 2018

(CS) proposed the minutes, these were seconded by (TB) and agreed unanimously by the

Council. The Minutes were signed as a true and accurate record of that meeting. He then invited

(IG) to update on the action raised.

Action / Matters Arising 4.

(IG) said that the action to circulate the BCC Brexit survey to Ambassadors had been completed

and that the results of this had now been published. He said that (VH) would circulate the

results of this survey to the Ambassadors

(VH) • (VH) to circulate BCC Brexit survey to Ambassadors

5. Dorset Chamber Policy Watch – Sep 2018

(IC) presented his policy report Nov2018 (a copy of which is attached to and forms part of these Minutes) to Council prior to the meeting. (IC) commented on a number of issues, some of which have been noted below.

He began his report with a very brief update on the key Brexit dates and said that there was a very real risk of a deal being rejected by Parliament.

He reported on the budget, 29th October, and noted this had been largely positive for businesses but added this may prove to be a little too late for many.

(IC) also updated on the Dorset Growth Deal programme and outlined the projects that had benefited from £98M in funding to date before updating on European Regional Development

Fund projects. He said that up to £8M would be made available to support growth in th Bournemouth with the bid deadline being 29 November.

(IC) spoke of the A338 road improvements and this resulted in a roundtable conversation on the general traffic issues in the conurbation. It was agreed that traffic congestion was becoming more of a problem and that bushiness had to work smart to avoid the negative impact this was having.

(IC) commented on the Apprenticeship Levy saying this had not been beneficial in increasing apprenticeship starts and that there had actually been a fall in numbers during 2017/18. He said

that the fee to SME’s had been reduced from 10% to 5% but no fixed date to implement this had

yet been set.

(IC) ended his report on the Dorset LEP’s strategic economic vision publication. (IG) said that he had copies of these and would distribute these to the Ambassadors at the end of the meeting. It was agreed that it would be useful to invite a member of the LEP to discuss this

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initiative further at a future Council meeting.

• (IG) to invite LEP representative to a future Council meeting (IG)

6. CEO Monthly Update

(IG) said that before he began his monthly report he wanted to ask Ambassadors to consider whether they revert back to the more traditional name of Councillor. There was a roundtable discussion concluded by a vote of those in favour that the name remain as Ambassadors belonging to a Council of Ambassadors.

(IG) then began his monthly report and updated on membership figures which he said was at its highest membership level for the last two years, totalling over 700. He said that he was pleased to report that the October Business Partner renewals had resulted in a 100% retention with the next renewals due in April.

(IG) said that he was very aware of the negative impact on the improvements being carried out to the A338 and with the traffic congestion generally. He said he had raised this issue many times with the local authority and that following a conversation with Bill Cotton, Director Economy and Environment, a collaboration was in place to hold a sustainable transport conference in April of next year.

He said that he was disappointed to report that DCCI hadn’t been successful in being shortlisted for the British Chambers Chamber of the Year award but would be looking to enter again next year.

He updated on the Dorset Business Awards Gala Dinner and said this had proved to be another spectacular night and that DCCI had received positive feedback. (IG) said that the DCCI team had worked hard to achieve such an excellent result and that sponsors were also pleased with their expectations having been met.

(IG) said the DBA had proven to be a good opportunity in showcasing DCCI as the leading business support and networking organisation. Therefore, he said, he was pleased both Matt Prosser Dorset unitary authority, and Graham Farrant, Bournemouth, Christchurch & unitary authority had both accepted their invitation to attend. It was agreed that (IG) would invite the new unitary authorities to a future council meeting. (IG) • IG) to invite Matt Prosser/Graham Farrant to a future Council meeting

(IG) reminded Ambassadors of the importance in attending the AGM, 7th December. He asked that, wherever possible, Ambassadors attended DCCI events and it was agreed that (VH) would circulate forthcoming event dates to Ambassadors in her role as Interim Events Manager.

He said that he and (PT) continued to work on the Dorset Chamber business plan centred around driving economic growth in Dorset. The launch date for this is April 2019.

(IG) concluded his report saying that the last Dorset Business Magazine published by the Dorset Echo was now in circulation and that a new magazine would be launched next year. He said an announcement on the new publisher would be made shortly following the conclusion of a tender procedure.

7. Any Other business

(CP) said he would like to see the introduction of more high-level events in the DCCI calendar and (IG) agreed, saying there was scope to implement these and this would be reviewed.

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There being no further business the meeting concluded at 6.10pm.

8. Dates of next meetings:

Council Meetings all commence at 4.30pm – venues tbc

Dates for 2019 to be confirmed shortly

Board Meetings all commence at 4.30 pm at Chamber House

Wednesday 12th December

Dates for 2019 to be confirmed shortly

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