North West Business Confidence Increases but remains near record low

BUSINESS confidence in the North West increased 10 points during May to -25%, but remained near historic lows, according to the latest Business Barometer from Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking. Companies in the Region reported higher confidence in their business prospects month on month, at -10%. When taken alongside their views of the economy overall, this gives a headline confidence reading of -25%. The Business Barometer questions 1,200 businesses monthly and provides early signals about UK economic trends both Regionally and nationwide. In an illustration of the impact COVID-19 is having on the Region's business, the majority of firms continued to see demand negatively affected during May, with the picture relatively unchanged month on month. 79% experienced a fall in demand for their products and services, up 1 point on the month before. Meanwhile, 6% experienced an increase in demand, down one point on April. The number of firms in the Region operating at less than 50% capacity decreased six points to 43%. Almost a quarter (23%) weren't operating at all, up from 18% in April. Of the 73% of businesses reporting disruption to their supply chain during May, 30% expected the situation to improve within three months, while 11% expected it would take more than 12 months to return to normal levels. Martyn Kendrick, Regional director for the North West at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, said:- "Our data shows that many firms are still grappling with reduced demand, and almost a quarter have paused operations. However, confidence is beginning to creep back after April's low, which is encouraging.  We're committed to helping firms across all sectors overcome the challenges being presented during this difficult time."

Across the UK, business confidence held steady month on month, dipping just one point to -33%. The North East and London both saw confidence rise month on month, scoring the joint highest confidence reading at -20%. The South West recorded lowest confidence at -51%, compared to -35% the month prior. From a Regional perspective, despite all being in negative sentiment, 6 of the 12 Regions reported a higher confidence in May. The North East was the least negative Region at -20%. The South West was the most negative Region at -51% followed by the South East at -45%. In May, the construction sector saw the sharpest decline, falling 24 percentage points to -44%. However, all the 3 other major sectors saw a modest increase. The retail sector increased eight points to -25%, while manufacturing rose to -27% and services saw a small increase of four points to -18%. Hann-Ju Ho, Senior Economist, Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, said:- "Despite the results partly capturing the period since the Government's announcement of an initial easing of restrictions, trading conditions remain difficult for most firms. Nevertheless, a further relaxation of constraints will enable more businesses to resume their activities."

Metro Mayor launches Sustain - a new programme to support Liverpool City Region businesses

NEW 5 week programme launched to help business leaders adapt their businesses to meet the challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram has launched the latest support programme designed to help Liverpool City Region business leaders navigate the unprecedented shock to the local economy of COVID-19. Sustain is a new 6 week online programme that will provide business leaders with the practical strategies and tools they need to boost their resilience in challenging times. With the 1st intake of business leaders starting in June, Sustain will be rolled out to 240 City Region businesses in 6 waves. The programme is aimed specifically at businesses in the advanced manufacturing, clean growth, health and life sciences, professional and business services, and supply chain and logistics sectors.

Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of Liverpool City Region, said:- "We know from our surveys that 95% of businesses are undergoing huge challenges right now as a result of unprecedented circumstances. It is clear that the scale of the immediate and long term financial support required for our economy, which will run to the hundreds of millions, cannot be met from local resources alone. As a Combined Authority, we are doing everything in our power to support the local business community, and to limit the risk to local jobs and livelihoods. With cash flow the greatest challenge facing our business, we have been working intensively with our local partners to help business get access to the finance they need from Government schemes. And we've been vigorously lobbying Central Government where those needs have not been met to secure changes to these schemes. We are now working on the development of a comprehensive recovery plan for the City Region that will help our businesses emerge from this crisis, and I have established an Economic Recovery Panel, to help us build back better. Sustain is the latest of our support programmes for business and one geared towards helping businesses adapt to the seismic economic changes they and we are facing. Delivered by one of the region's most innovative business development organisations, Sustain will help businesses develop strategies to sustain and adapt their operations during this difficult time and emerge from it stronger and better prepared. By connecting local business leaders with each other, and with experts who can provide a listening ear as well as practical guidance, our aim is to help our business build a more resilient local business community that can weather not only this storm, but those they may be faced with at any point in the future too."

The announcement is part of a wider package of immediate economic support also announced by the Metro Mayor to directly assist businesses across the City Region and help them access Central Government funds. Sustain, along with previously launched online support programme, Mettle (part of the Gather community) are delivered by Liverpool City Region-based growth consultancy, Form and can be applied for online. Sustain, which launched on 27 May 2020, offers business leaders a space to strengthen their pipeline, rebuild their business plan and create clarity across the business. Its aim is to support and connect business leaders, many of whom will be currently facing similar challenges as the local economy responds to the global pandemic. Business leaders can join the community by signing up online. The course will be made up of 3 modules over 6 weeks. Each module includes an interactive online workshop and collaborative breakout sessions, followed by access to digital resources and workbooks to support leaders to keep their team on track.

Form director and programme lead, Katie Peate, added:- "In these unprecedented times, even the most experienced leaders need the right support. Leadership can be lonely, so connection and community are vital. Recognising this, we've developed Sustain which will give leaders across the City Region access to a community of leaders experiencing the same challenges and expert guides to help them navigate this uncertain time."

Sustain is one part of the Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor's ₤75million Business Growth Package, elements of which are being redirected to support the local business community's recovery from the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Business leaders from relevant sectors are encouraged to sign up for Sustain. To reserve your place for the 6 week Sustain course, go to:- GrowthPlatform.Org.

Phone interview with CEO of Rated People, Adrienne Minster about the impact of COVID19

PHONE interview with CEO of Rated People, Adrienne Minster following on from a report we ran that Rated People had found out that the immediate impact on North West businesses of the COVID-19 lockdown that the area had a 48% drop in homeowners posting jobs. To hear the audio interview, please click below.

If the audio player is not working you can also try this link to our YouTube channel. If you want to hire a trades person, please go to:- RatedPeople.com if you are a homeowner and for safety guidance for having work done please click on here. Trades people looking to join Rated People can do so via this link:- RatedPeople.Com/Tradesmen/Signup and for a safety guidance for trades people you can click here.

"[00:00:00] 1st off how do I get you to introduce yourself please.

[00:00:03] Yeah I'm Adrienne Minster. I'm the CEO of Rated People which is the UK's largest home services marketplace with over 1 million homeowners using US every year to connect to 50000 trade businesses across the UK.

[00:00:18] With the corona virus we've seen an unprecedented situation where a loss of freelancers of all the builders on it but everybody has been pushed out of sync.

[00:00:33] How do you think that's going to impact on them at the moment. What does your research come up with.

[00:00:39] Of course I know we have visibility there about 5% of the market. So we've really seen in general ahem services have been ahead about 50% or in lockdown as far as the demand coming from home owners for worse things than what we have seen though is now you know in general the country's almost back to pre lockdown levels of demand. The North West in particular is basically back to normal. But in general across the country we're still about 8% down on what would be typical volume of requests that we'd be seeing right now for trace trade.

[00:01:19] Do you think the requests for risk assessments that the added burden of risk to people going into people's houses of businesses is going to be more of a problem.

[00:01:34] It's very important. So the Government has outlined really clear guidelines for how to have work done safely in England and there's increasing guidance coming in Scotland as well, about how to have worked them safely and what is key to that is really what you've just pointed out in that the communication upfront about making sure that you do understand what is the work environment that an individual or a small group of people might be coming into to make sure that they have access to hand washing facilities or if not they bring hand sanitizer with them and that ideally you're able to maintain the social distancing both among the workers if possible on the job but also with the homeowner or the customer that's getting their work done to make sure that do you think is boosting anxiety, but with both customers and also the workers. It certainly does. So we are seeing a lot of people want to be working right. The majority of our trade customers want to be out there, want to be earning, they of course want to be doing that safely, but there's a real urgency to be working. And, we're quite lucky in that the weather's really good right now.

[00:02:50] So loads of exterior work is carrying on and we're seeing increased interest from homeowners who are now having to use their space in a totally different way whether that's working from home or maybe having children that have come back or are now having a home school for a period of time now wanting to get to some of those projects that they've started to notice the cracks in the walls. Think about that pink colour that they want to change you know some now that in England at least we are able to do that work safely with guidance from the Government. You know some of these products can carry on and then what we've been seeing a lot of demand for it is really the exterior work as people are trying to make sure that they can make the most of their art and space and their outside space which is so much more important now as kind of a hub for the families socialisation because we're obviously restricted.

[00:03:45] What have you seen a growth in the market at the moment or is there any sector where you've seen more applications a normal complete.

[00:03:55] I think tree surgeons is up tremendously it's up over 150% in the North West loft conversions is also exceptionally popular in and around the pool and the wider North West Region. It's actually making up 40% of all a whole lot of conversion requests in the UK right now. So there's something happening there where everyone's trying to convert loft spaces right now and then we've also seen a good increase in CCTV specialists as people are trying to get their connectivity improved. Gardeners and window fighters are almost 40% to 60% his only area which you've seen a downturn in that a completely you know surprisingly Stone works is down 75%. And they were the hardest hit particularly in Liverpool area through the locked down. It was down well over 90% and they're still down 75% which is a bit surprising. And similarly locksmith and security specialist and bathroom painting and decorating you know those things that the discretionary interior works. But you'd expect to still be down and that's still down 30% to 50%. But the locksmiths and the security specialist it's quite interesting that they're suffering quite a bit because people of course home more now so they don't get locked out of their homes as often as they used to.

[00:05:18] So you know that's been an interesting issue that we've seen happening.

[00:05:24] It's a anything but the market to do that would actually help itself. But if anything you buy is to help take out the anxiety.

[00:05:34] Yeah, well I say 2 things. 1st is you know do be aware of what the Government guidelines are because they have given good guidance around how to be safe. You can find that information actually on to people back home if you want to go to our White House for about 10 miles and trace people. We keep those articles up to date with the latest information all the time so people can them there to understand how they can get work done safely because there is a lot of demand. The second thing that I would say there's a lot of awareness about supporting you know your local businesses and people when they think of local businesses are really thinking about their local shops at a local restaurant in Paris. But you know one in 5 businesses across the country is a trade service business. I would really encourage people to think about supporting their local trade services with work that is safe to do you know and just make sure that we are sort of keeping that important part of our economy ticking over.

[00:06:28] I think it's such a big share of the workforce obviously and any businesses go on those results and the figures didn't show anything changing.

[00:06:38] It's still it's still early days, but a lot of people are seeing how they can weather the storm. And there's been a certain number of businesses that will go out of business every year anyway and the trade services sector. But we are expecting unfortunately an increase in that this year. But some of the Government support programs particularly the bounce back loans that support for self employed and for some of our larger customer support many big trade businesses allow the ability to further statement on framing the stock as the demand. You know all of those things are helping hopefully the large majority of trade businesses stay in business through this which is what we're really focused on as a company and certainly making sure we keep them in business.

[00:07:20] What type of businesses do you deal with.

[00:07:23] Everything that we service over to the different jobs page that's everything from product control to the conversions are building works. And from a trade that standpoint you know Wolf the chorus as a sole trader. But we have many customers to start with. I guess it's my team that have now grown into a franchise operation and are much bigger businesses that are coming to us to find quality work on our platform from great homeowners that are out there across the country that are good people all the time and they're finding out about our advertising channel that even something like Google you know it's a great way to define the words that the want saleable.

[00:08:02] How do you actually do the writing of the play.

[00:08:06] So we do 2 things. We do three things really with that upfront so we reject about one in 5 applications to join the site and we maintain a very stringent blacklist of businesses that we won't work with. We then monitor on our site what's happening. But the most important piece is really that homeowner feedback loop which is a closed loop so homeowners can only find work that's been done by trades people that have gotten it through the site. So we don't accept any ratings from other platforms of previous work that we can't validate and we obviously monitor those ratings. You know sometimes you do find many rating sites fake ratings we really police ours very heavily and vetting people from outside. If anybody wants to find out more about taking part in joining yourselves how they can do it. And also how can people actually get old and find traders national if you're looking to get something to work in your house so people can find or download our app and it's free post the job you'll get three quotes and if you're a trade business that wants to be in control of how much work you do go to read to people dot com again and there's a site now button at the top of the site and you can either call our sales team to speak with them and or submit a form and we'll get back to you."