SupplierNiall Coady, managing director, MyPressXpert
"Sectorial funding would be more effective and ‘transparent’ than regional funding. The printing sector deserves its own backing as opposed to a ‘council run’ blanket fund. Therefore, I would question what the BPIF has done to achieve the best for its members. It seems to me that its emphasis has been to develop chargeable services and pointless certifications rather than truly serving the needs of the people who already fund its activities, the printer."
Electronics printerChris Jones, sales director, Novalia Printed Electronics
"It would make an awful lot of sense to have sector-based funding rather than geographically based. It would allow them to look at the industry as a whole rather than in one area, where print may or may not be of interest. Having said that, I am based in London and Novalia is based in Cambridge and we are working with funding from Print Yorkshire because it is a Yorkshire-based consortium. Print Yorkshire saw something that had a benefit and chose to fund it. We could have had a situation if it was sectorially funded where the organisation didn’t see the benefit to print and chose not to fund it."
Print finisherRichard Anstock, proprietor, Nottingham Print Finishers
"Morally it would be right if funding for print was spread across the country, but I think I would probably say that it is right to keep print funding in areas that are geared up to make the most of it. You risk throwing money into an area where the money will not be used in the most cost-effective way, and lets face it, the print industry is the first to moan about wasting funding. Print lends itself to that M1 spine of the country or major hubs like Manchester or London because of the transport issues involved. If you are spreading funding into areas like Norfolk or Cumbria it is difficult to see where the value in that will be."
Book printerPeter Leach, managing director, JF Print
"As an SME, this is an issue very close to our heart. We do not see any support from the government and it is often difficult enough to get the departments to talk to each other. I think it is a good move by the BPIF to call for more support for the sector especially at a time where getting any level of support is so hard to come by. Time and time again you will hear back from the RDA that supporting print is too much of a risk. From our point of view, this sector has done really well to become competitive against overseas business, so more support would be welcome."
