How is Coronavirus affecting your business?
07/04/2020
Take the UKFT Coronavirus Survey
The UK Fashion & Textile Association (UKFT) is supporting the entire UK fashion and textile industry during the Coronavirus outbreak and sharing relevant industry-specific updates as soon as they become available via our free newsletter (sign up here.)
The fashion and textile industry has always proved to be extremely resilient and now is the time for us all to work closely together to support and sustain each other. The power of our individual and collective actions, and the support and compassion we show to each other, will offer our businesses a unique advantage as we deal with this unprecedented situation.
We have prepared a short survey to help us give an accurate and up-to-date view of how Coronavirus is affecting our industry, to feed into Government directly and via other business organisations such as the CBI. We very much want to hear how the Covid-19 situation is affecting you, your team and your business.
UKFT will treat this information as commercial in confidence and will not share individual responses. However, by completing the survey, you consent to allow UKFT to share the combined results with UK Government, the CBI and other relevant organisations for Covid-19-related lobbying purposes.
TAKE THE UKFT CORONAVIRUS SURVEY
Below are some of the latest updates relating to Coronavirus and the UK fashion and textile industry.
SIGN UP TO OUR NEWSLETTER: If you’d like to sign up to receive these updates, you can do it here.
UKFT CORONAVIRUS GUIDANCE: As your trade association, UKFT is in close contact with the Government and other business organisations such as the CBI, and together we will to provide you with the most up to date, relevant help and advice. Our latest guidance can be found at ukft.org/coronavirus
CAMPAIGNING FOR ‘THE FORGOTTEN MIDDLE’: We’re urging the government to provide support for individuals or companies that are not eligible for any of the existing Covid-19 related protection schemes. These include the owners and/or founders of small limited companies who derive their income from a limited company but not through PAYE, the self-employed who have not shown any profits and those who were employed after 28th February. You can read more about this here.
THE PPE SUPPLY CHAIN: We are working to support the government as it starts to increase the availability of PPE and our latest update about the PPE performance requirements is here. The latest developments will be sent via our newsletter.
INTERNATIONAL TRADESHOWS: UKFT administers the tradeshow grant programme for fashion and textiles on behalf of the Department for International Trade. We are in touch with the international tradeshows and some of the key showrooms on our programme (Pitti Uomo, Paris Fashion Week, Première Vision, Heimtextil etc) to identify which shows will take place, when and where. Read more here.
HOLIDAY ENTITLEMENT DURING COVID-19: The government has announced their intention to relax the rules around holidays meaning that employees who have not taken all of their statutory annual leave entitlement due to COVID-19 will now be able to carry it over into the next 2 leave years. Read more here.
CORONAVIRUS JOB RETENTION SCHEME AND FURLOUGH: We’ve updated our guidance on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the furlough process, with new details on volunteer work or training, apprentices, company directors and office holders. Read the full guidance here.
UKFT is in constant dialogue with the government and is outlining the latest support available for businesses on our website. We will update the details as and when the situation changes.