The UK’s top accountant who gave advice to 10 Downing Street during the financial crisis has called for more help for businesses in North Wales to ensure the economic recovery is sustained.
Martyn Jones, President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England Wales (ICAEW), says more needs to be done to help small and medium businesses in North Wales to recover from tumultuous decade including a deep recession to create jobs and build a sustainable future.
Mr Jones was speaking at the fifth anniversary celebration dinner of Wrexham Business Professionals (WBP) at the Ramada Plaza in Wrexham.
WBP is a group of highly skilled professional firms of solicitors and accountants working together to raise the profile of expertise that exists in the region and beyond.
About 150 of its members and guests gathered for the dinner at which the other prominent guest speaker was John Timpson, Chairman of the Timpson group of companies.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales is a leading professional body with 142,000 members in business, professional firms, the public sector and in the charity sector in many countries.
Mr Jones, who is originally from Denbigh, has had a distinguished career which began in a medium-sized firm and an international practice before he became a lecturer.
Before becoming a standard setter then a senior technical partner in a large firm of accountants he has provided advisory services to a number of well-known companies, financial institutions and to the House of Commons and to the House of Lords.
He has also worked on projects with the World Economic Forum and provided insights to the Prime Minister’s Senior Policy Advisor on “going concern issues” during the financial crisis.
He believes strongly in the key role of Chartered Accountants in promoting the success of the private sector side of the economy and in providing wide social access to the professions.
In his speech, Mr Jones said he was delighted to be in Wrexham which had a reputation for high-tech manufacturing and for the sheer scale of its industrial park.
Its local companies, like many others, he said, had been through a “tumultuous decade” of recession but were now finding that there was light at the end of the tunnel.
He told members: “Confidence is at its highest in a decade and continues to grow but the recovery needs to be totally sustainable, broad based and not just built on rising debt. It must also benefit Wales as much as it does London and the South East of England.”
Mr Jones explained that the ICAEW had formulated a number of campaigns to help businesses recover from the recession, and one of its main aims was to do all it can to help small and medium businesses (SMEs).
He said: “Our members are concerned that more needs to be done to kick-start growth and help SMEs obtain finance to create jobs for the community and jobs to help society.
“They can do much to assist SMEs and we are keen to see that our members play a role in helping to create those jobs.”
One of the key measures to aid the economic recovery, he suggested, was the creation of a “simpler and fairer” tax system.
A current campaign by the institute, he said, was aimed at boosting the employment prospects of young people through the Business Skills for Enterprise (BASE) scheme.
Aimed at teaching basic skills to youngsters, this has already been successfully operating in England for some time and will be rolled out to various areas of Wales – including Wrexham – next year, eventually benefitting over 3,500 young people.
He said: “The challenge for all of us is to step up our game and do even better at ensuring that this region is not only one of the most successful parts of Wales but also globally.”
In his speech, John Timpson, described the novel strategy he had developed to grow and strengthen his family business, which grew from a small Manchester shoe shop opened by his great-grandfather in the 1860s to a nationwide network of over 1,000 shoe, watch and mobile phone repairers.
This strategy is based on a concept he called “upside down management”, which puts the needs of the customer at the top above those of middle management and shop staff.
It is also based on the helpfulness of staff and the scrapping of any “red tape” not thought to be helpful to taking the business forward.
Mr Timpson, who has been involved in the company for over 50 years, also spoke of the sometimes controversial policy of employing people who had been in prison.
He said that over 300 people who have left prison in the past five years now work for the company, which is about 10 per cent of the total workforce, and that six of its shops are managed by people who had been released on temporary license, which means they split their time between the workplace and prison.
The company, said Mr Timpson, was still expanding and following its takeover and revival of the Max Spielman group of photographic shops had just bought out a similar operation in the London area and was soon to begin running the photographic businesses inside Tesco supermarkets.
Gill Atkinson, a founder member of WBP and a Director of Coxeys Chartered Accountants and Registered Auditors, who hosted the evening, thanked the two speakers for their “fascinating insights”.
She said: “I think that with Wrexham Business Professionals we have managed to create something which is flexible and non-competitive.
“Over the past five years our collective voice has been growing in influence and confidence and we have enjoyed much media coverage, in the press, on radio and TV.
“We are immensely grateful for all the support and goodwill we have we have received over the years.”
During the evening a prize draw was held which raised over £2,000 for Nightingale House Hospice whose executive director John Savage spoke to members about the vital role it plays in the region.
