Freya Simms, LAPADA chief executive.
It also keeps members up to date with regulatory or legal changes, as well as offering dealers a library of detailed advice through the members’ Knowledge Bank. It contains advice on a wide range of issues from EORI numbers, to the Common Transit Convention, to CITES permits.
SLAD organised a webinar in January, Navigating the Post Brexit Freight Blues, in which a panel of professionals outlined the regulatory implications of a hard border including additional the documentation needed, VAT liabilities and freight costs. This is available as an on-going training resource in the SLAD Webinar Archive in the members’ area of its website.
It also offers a VAT and Customs helpline run by Haines Watts, free of charge to members and connecting them to professional advisers.
BADA has been keeping members abreast of the latest regulatory changes in rules through its newsletters and tries to assist individual queries on a case-by-case basis. It said in a statement: “We have also made a submission to the Government and talked to the Cabinet Office in support of the streamlining of customs procedures as part of the Government’s Single Trade Window initiative. We have told the Government that micro and small businesses which have previously handled their own shipments of goods between the UK and the EU would benefit greatly from a user-friendly and affordable means of inputting data for customs declarations, and their Temporary Admissions paperwork.
“The Government’s Single Trade Window policy discussion paper refers to the possibility of ‘self-declaration’ by importers or exporters and we have said we would welcome free user-friendly Government alternatives to the expensive and complex software that currently has to be used when customs data is submitted into CHIEF [Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight].”
