Businesses and public-sector bodies must do more to keep themselves going during the current bout of bad weather, according to Chartered Management Institute (CMI) chief executive Ann Francke. Interviewed today on Sky News, Francke warned: “The economic impact of this weather is that it’s very disruptive – it will produce negative results. We know that the snow in January cost businesses on average £52,000 and with this bad weather continuing we have every reason to suspect that there will be a very high cost once again.”
While UK retail sales rebounded in February after taking a hit from January’s blizzards, there is a very real threat that they are about to be damaged again. “With Easter coming, that’s a very big weekend,” Francke said. “Bad weather has been the top business disruptor for three years running – so it’s about time we started getting prepared by having continuity plans in place to cope with the bad weather.”
However, Francke argued, the current low rate of implementation could cause the economy as a whole to suffer. “With business continuity plans being effective,” she said, “it’s about time – given that bad weather has for three years running been the Number One cause [of lost business] – that we took this more seriously. Just over half of businesses have been prepared for this bad weather, and that’s not enough.
“All businesses need to prepare,” Francke added, “so it’s about enabling staff to work remotely. For councils, it’s about making sure they have their supply chains at the ready – plenty of gritters, plenty of snow shovellers – and of course, for Britain as a whole, it would be good to have enough gas in those storage tanks to keep us all warm.”
As the UK faces the prospect of a triple-dip recession, the weather has a powerful role in making that a reality. “We know that the Big Freeze of 2010 resulted in negative GDP growth; we’ve every reason to expect a similar result from this bout of bad weather,” Francke said. “It’s not good for getting Britain back to growth.”
The threat is particularly severe, given the month in which bad weather has re-emerged. Agriculture and construction have been cited as two sectors that could be seriously affected, as they would normally be picking up their activity at this time. “We think the effects will be very broad scale,” Francke warned. “Again, the message to business, the message to government, is: let’s start taking this bad weather seriously. Let’s put business continuity plans in place to deal with the disruption.
“We know it cost businesses up to £1m [in January]. I would expect quite a negative impact – similar, perhaps, to the Big Freeze of 2010.”