Friday Brief 16/09/2022

Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief. We hope we can bring you some positive stories in this time of national mourning.

We have a new government and already we can see shifts in policy thinking and emphasis, and government getting back into gear. Boosting productivity is back on the front burner after tailing off after an HM Treasury/BEIS consultation in 2018. We, working with EAMA (of which MTA is a member), would like to contribute to the debate. Take a look at the story below and let us know what you think we should put forward to help to boost productivity.

Jack Semple, Secretary of EAMA, has compiled a review of the policy announcements from last week around the support that the government is going to provide for energy costs for both consumers and businesses. He also offers some comments on the background to this and how the impact for businesses will be implemented – most of the detail is around consumers prices rather than businesses. In a separate piece, Jack provides some thoughts on the re-emergence of productivity as a key element of the new government’s growth strategy – we are looking for your feedback as we (MTA and EAMA) build a case to government, especially to support SME’s.

With digitalization becoming more prevalent across industries, the machine tool sector is also directly impacted by cybersecurity risks. Given the relevance of this subject for our sector, CECIMO have developed a paper that includes important topics. Find bullet points on the subjects included in the story below.

Rosa Wilkinson, Director of Policy at the High Value Manufacturing Catapult and a Member of the MTA Board, has compiled an update on the current position surrounding government business including an emergency budget, ministerial appointments and proceedings in the House of Commons – you can find this in the article on the business of government below.

Neil Trivedi from The Perfect Press Company who are a member of The MTA is going to be launching his latest book formally in November. Go to the story below to register for the free event .

You are invited to attend a free webinar introducing the Help To Grow – Management course; the webinar is being organised by the Engineering & Machinery Alliance (of which MTA is a member), in partnership with BEIS to introduce the course. It will take place at 10am on October 3rd. In the webinar, speakers from BEIS and from a business school, along with an MD who has already completed the course, will present and explain how it would benefit firms that work in the machinery and component supply chain. To register and read more about the webinar please view the story.

The MTA is pleased to announce the Annual Members’ Golf Day will be on Thursday 5th October 2022 and will be returning to The Leicestershire Golf Club. Sign up and find out more below.

This week saw the publication of the UK output data for July and, along with that, the GDP estimate for the month. There was a modest growth in activity in the UK economy in July, led by the service sector but with manufacturing also making a positive contribution; often it is the devil that lurks in the detail but on this occasion, it is those parts of the manufacturing spectrum which are of most relevance to the manufacturing technology sector that are providing the good news. The other element of the economic news article this week is the latest GDP data for Europe.

MTA’s CEO James Selka and our Statistician, Geoff Noon have been at IMTS this week and have penned a joint “Letter from America” to summarise some of the key trends that have emerged during the show.

Finally, a reminder that the MTA Business Survey for August will be closing next week but there is still time to let us have your input. You can access the questionnaire at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-aug22 and, with many thanks to those who have responded already, we hope you can spare a couple of minutes to let us have your feedback – we would love to hear from you.

That concludes this week’s Friday Brief. I hope you all have a great weekend and we’ll ‘see’ you again next Friday!

ECONOMIC NEWS

UK Industrial Production, July 2022: The latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed manufacturing output unchanged from the level in June; however, we prefer to focus on rolling 3-month periods as this smooths out some of the noise in the data and on this basis, output in the latest 3 months (May, June […]

MTA’S LETTER FROM AMERICA

With apologies to readers of a certain generation who will remember a similarly titled BBC Radio broadcast, James Selka and Geoff Noon have been at IMTS in Chicago this week and offer a few thoughts on what has been on show. The event was slightly smaller than in 2018 but still filled about 96% of […]

Help to Grow – Management course

Standards booklet Update – September 2022

Please find a link below to Standards Update Booklet which provides the following information: The BSI committees the MTA attends The standards under revision in each committee The development stage of each standard under revision. This document is updated and distributed every 3 months. It is available via the MTA’s Friday Brief and on our […]

The MTA’s Annual Golf Day is back!

The MTA is pleased to announce the Annual Members’ Golf Day will be on Thursday 5th October 2022 and will be returning to The Leicestershire Golf Club. To sign up and to view more details please go to the event page on our website here: https://www.mta.org.uk/event/annual-mta-members-golf-day-2021

Official launch – The Strategic Lean Office

Neil Trivedi from The Perfect Press Company who are a member of The MTA is going to be launching his latest book formally in November. It’s a free event, people just have to register: “I’m pleased to announce that I will be formally launching my book on Wednesday 23rd November at 7pm at Temperance bar […]

The Business of Government

Rosa Wilkinson, Director of Policy at the High Value Manufacturing Catapult and a Member of the MTA Board, notes that there are reports that Liz Truss will hold a ‘mini budget’ (a small fiscal event) sometime next week when Parliament is expected to return after the Queen’s funeral and before the party conference break. The […]

CECIMO – Cybersecurity for the Machine Tools Industry – New publication

With digitalization becoming more prevalent across industries, the machine tool sector is also directly impacted by cybersecurity risks. Equipment, uptime, trade secrets, brand value, intellectual property, and even personal safety must be protected from malicious network intrusions, employee sabotage, or accidental manipulation. Given the relevance of this subject for our sector, we developed a paper […]

Which firms will get priority support on energy prices?

New Business and Energy Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg is to review which companies should be prioritised for energy support, prime minister Liz Truss told the Commons. Truss announced measures to contain energy costs for households and businesses, and to bring inflation down by five percentage points. An Energy Price Guarantee will mean “a typical household” will […]

Friday Brief