FEATURE
its members, and that’s the most important thing. That’s what we’re there for; to serve our members and also to try and keep the cleaning industry in the public eye. We do have now an MP who has agreed to be our ‘Cleaning Industry Champion’, Jim Fitzpatrick, who is the MP for Poplar and Limehouse. Jim has been there, done it and got the t-shirt. I think that will help us because we’re still working towards getting an All Party Parliamentary Committee – we’re working along in the background trying to get that – but Jim is very supportive and is very enthusiastic to help us along the way. And he will be presenting the BCC Supervisor of the Year award at the Golden Service Awards as well.
At the end of the day
we’re a national cleaning council, we should be
spreading ourselves out across the country.
the European Federation of Cleaning Industries (EFCI). The reason for that being that we want to keep our fingers on the pulse and it would sit best in the BCC because we can feed all that information straight back to members, and I think it’s quite important that we keep an eye on what’s happening over in Europe.
TC: Doug Cooke obviously did a lot of good for the industry during his tenure as Chairman, moving the Cleaning Show to London this year and raising awareness and support for the Living Wage Foundation as well. Do you feel any kind of pressure following him, or is it not really like that?
SH: I don’t think it’s really like that. We will carry on improving how the BCC works and how it supports
www.tomorrowscleaning.com
TC: Some big news coming from the Council this month is the creation of the Manchester Cleaning Show, taking place on April 7-8th next year. How much of a benefit will this have for the industry, especially for those of us based in the North?
SH: As you know, we’ve had a BCC Conference which has normally been held every year in November. And I think we’re all very aware that once the Cleaning Show moved down to London, we didn’t want to be accused of being a ‘South-ist’ organisation, so what we’re looking to do is offer an alternative at that time of the year.
What we’re hoping to do as well is not only will there be a BCC conference there; we are encouraging our member association to hold sessions there too. The ABCD, for example, will be holding their AGM there, and also one or two other sessions specifically for local authorities. The British Toilet Association (BTA) is also looking at
holding their AGM there at the venue at the same time. So this is the first slice of trying to pull lots of things together to try and get more of the cleaning industry together in one place, and I think we do appreciate that it is difficult for members really anywhere north of Birmingham to travel down to London for a day, even though I think the Cleaning Show was very successful at the Excel.
I don’t know how much square footage for the show has been sold just yet, as it is still very early days for us, but I’m hearing that there have been some positive initial enquiries about it.
TC: Do you think that if the Manchester Cleaning Show does well it could become a regular fixture on the cleaning calendar?
SH: Absolutely, but what we’re looking to do is to do it on the alternate years so we do London one year then Manchester the year after. That’s the plan that it will be every other year. At the end of the day we’re a national cleaning council, we should be spreading ourselves out across the country.
TC: You’re also the very first Chairman of the BCC to come from the public sector – are proud of that fact? How do you think that experience will help during your tenure?
SH: I’m very proud of the fact that since the BCC’s inception I’m the first person from the public sector to hold the chair. I know it had been mooted for many years that they wanted somebody from the public sector, purely to demonstrate that the BCC goes right the way across the whole industry.
If nothing else, my public sector experience will be a steadying hand. I suppose in local authorities we’re not able to make snap decisions – we get on and run the business – but I do think we tend to sometimes sit back and have a look at it first, so it’s a steadying hand more than anything else – not saying that the BCC hasn’t been run steadily! I just wanted to be in a situation where I know it’s in a very strong position when I hand it on to the next Chairman in two years time.
Tomorrow’s Cleaning August 2015 | 27
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