Kevin Franklin
In February the Ports and Borders Group (PBG) gathered for its 100th meeting aboard HQS Wellington. SITPRO acknowledged this landmark occasion, as well as the start of its 40th anniversary year, by inviting members of other key stakeholder groups and past and present PBG members to hear about the outcome of the review of UK trade burdens and how SITPRO would be working with businesses and government departments to implement the government’s new action plan.
Kevin Costelloe, Deputy Director of Excise, Customs, Stamps and Money at HMRC, opened proceedings with a keynote overview of customs strategy, focussing on the challenges arising from border management, frontier security, CHIEF transition, implementation of the Modernised Customs Code and the need to accommodate a reduction in public spending. Kevin Franklin, formerly Director of Trade Procedures at SITPRO and now Director of the Border Transformation Group at UKBA, recalled that the 1996 SITPRO Review of Port Procedures had called for a single border agency and spoke of UKBA's role to provide a consolidated approach to border management.
Bob Ingram
SITPRO’s Chairman, Norman Rose, told participants how the government had set itself the task of addressing many issues of concern to the PBG including improving the co-ordination of border agencies and their interaction with port users, providing effective delivery of the International Trade Single Window and improving consistency of decisions by port health authorities. Malcolm McKinnon, SITPRO’s Chief Executive, explained how the role of the Advisory Council will be enhanced, making it a sounding board for trade-derived issues to be considered by the new International Trade Facilitation Committee. He emphasised that SITPRO’s Advisory Groups would be required to break the ground with new issues and ideas for improving UK border management for goods. He also announced that at the local level SITPRO intended to make more use of port user communities to improve border agency co-ordination at all the UK's major ports.
However, this was also a time for celebrating the success of SITPRO’s most enduring stakeholder group. Former PBG Chairmen Bob Ingram (1990-96) and Brian Atkinson (1997-2007) both highlighted how the keys to the past and future success of the PBG were the commitment of members to engage with SITPRO in driving the issues forward combined with a strong lead and efficient secretariat from SITPRO.
Return to SITPRO News: Issue 71, Winter 2009/2010
