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BMF announces risk specialist for Conference
BMF meets MP’s again about Apprentices
Professor Kevin Fong, the latest speaker for the BMF All Industry Conference 2023, specialises in risk, decision-making and innovation.
Kevin is a Consultant in
Anaesthesia at London’s University College Hospital (UCL) and part of their Emergency Response and Major Incident Planning Team. He was seconded to NHS England as National Clinical Advisor in Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response for Covid
19.Kevin also worked as an academic and completed training rotations at America’s leading Space Centers, before founding the Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment (CASE) Medicine at UCL, which looks at the parallels that exist between critical illness and the physiology of extreme environments.
From space travel to emergency medical response, Kevin has combined insights into planning, human reactions and behaviours, engineering, and psychology to understand risk and decision making. His broad range of interests and experiences means he can address how teams work and operate. He considers how those that work every day under pressure, under stress and with high-risk deal with it to make the right calls, and quickly learn from mistakes. He is a regular contributor to programmes on the past, present, and future of space travel and has presented numerous editions of BBC 2’s Horizon.
The Kitchen Bathroom Buying Group (KBBG), part of DER KREIS, Europe’s leading kitchen and bathroom buying group, has partnered with the Builders Merchants Federation (BMF) to support BMF members in successfully selling kitchens and bathrooms.
KBBG announces partnership with the BMF Whether our
The collaboration of both organisations will provide BMF members with a comprehensive kitchen and bathroom sales package, including access to tremendous buying advantages from a variety of kitchen and bathroom suppliers from around the UK and Europe.
This enables BMF members who do not currently sell kitchens and bathrooms to expand their business into an area of retailing that is complementary to their current offering and can significantly help improve margins. KBBG will also support BMF members that already have showrooms and take their kitchen and bathroom offering to the next level.
The KBBG support package includes preferential rates for design training, access to two
December 2022
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net
leading CAD systems from ArtiCAD or Compusoft, and the best buying conditions from selected kitchen and bathroom furniture suppliers. Bill Miller, Managing Director, KBBG, comments: “It may sound overwhelming at first, but for builder’s merchants, a move into selling kitchens and bathrooms is a natural fit.
Through our partnership, BMF members will be able to access a range of leading kitchen and bathroom furniture suppliers and benefit from exclusive buying conditions.
Our support package also enables BMF members access to appliance brands as well as preferential rates from service providers such as Lead Wolf, Novuna consumer finance and the Used Kitchen Exchange, to help enhance their business.”John Newcomb, CEO, BMF, adds:
“At BMF, we are passionate about adding value to our members’ businesses. Selling kitchens and bathrooms is a fantastic opportunity for our members to expand and strengthen their offering.
merchants already sell kitchens and bathrooms, or have
never even considered doing so, we are confident that our partnership with KBBG will offer BMF members the support needed to achieve their full potential.
• For more information on the KBBG, or the BMF partnership, call Bill Miller on 07887 247811 or email
b.miller@
derkreis.co.uk
Unused Apprenticeship Levy payments were on the agenda at last month’s meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Apprenticeships that we attended. Parliamentarians and business representatives heard that approx. £2 billion of employers’ contributions have not been used within the time limit. Unspent contributions taken by the HMRC had gone straight back to HM Treasury, as general taxation, and therefore lost for training & skills’ purposes. The mood of employers at this
meeting was that:
ministers should turn the Levy into a more flexible, broad-based training & skill levy; advanced or higher level apprenticeships were being filled to the detriment of 16-18 year olds from who the number of starts were too low.
This endorses the BMF view that the Levy is not working properly. Until it is reformed, builders will find it hard to invest
in the quantity and quality of new learners (especially in low- and zero-carbon trades) as many existing workers approach retirement.
The APPG Joint Chairs are Labour’s Emma Hardy MP (Hull West & Hessle) and Conservative Jack Lopresti MP (Filton & Bradley Stoke).
APPGs are a good way for us to reach parliamentarians. On this occasion, we met Toby Perkins MP (Shadow Skill’s Minister); Lord Ken Baker (well-known former Education Secretary) the man responsible for championing University Technical Colleges; and Baroness Sue Garden (Lib Dem Spokeswoman on Further Education).
BMF DIARY DATES
Please check the BMF website at
www.bmf.org.uk for all the latest news and events updates in this ever-changing environment.
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