The role of chambers of commerce 150 years on

Walking down the high street in St Helens it is hard to spot them. A Facebook or LinkedIn user is obvious from 30 metres. But a chamber of commerce member is much harder to identify. Apparently there are 92,120 of them dotted around the UK, all belonging to these august institutions, the oldest of which dates back to 1768.

I'm visiting the home of Pilkington Glass and the Saints rugby league team because the local chamber is one of the best in the country, according to the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) – which accredits individual chambers to maintain standards and is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.

With all the business trade bodies losing members during the recession – the chambers lost 3,000 members last year – it seems a good time to see why the chambers still exist at all. After all, isn't it easier to buy widgets over the internet from a Chinese manufacturer than it is to find common ground with Leo's Logistics or Deidre's Deli, that trade from the same patch of British soil?

I set out to find out what makes St Helens' chamber tick. Except I get off at the wrong train station stop: St Helens Junction, which is actually Sutton. The state of the housing stock tells you this is not an affluent town – the derelict industrial land and the three feral youths, bare top and hiding under the station footbridge confirm the impression. The café across the street is advertising "The cheapest pies in Sutton".

Boundary Sign Shop, however, stands out from this unpromising backdrop. It sells vehicle signs, wraps and banners. I ask Boundary's friendly manager, Lee, if the local chamber plays any part in his life. He tells me that while he is not a member, some of his self-employed customers are. "They might have a grant from the chamber to set up, £1,000 or £5,000, and they come in and ask me for the cost of putting their name on their van," he says. If they are chamber members, they also want the logo on their vans as a sign of endorsement, he adds. It is an indication of the reach that some chambers have, even outside their immediate patch.

Chambers are not, however, a single homogenous network. "Some chambers are glorified golf clubs and some are driving economic regeneration," is how Barrie Kelly, head of marketing at St Helens puts it. The smallest chambers, like the Bishop Stortford chamber in the constituency of small business minister Mark Prisk, meets perhaps once a month for a chat and catch-up. Others run events almost every day.

The larger chambers provide publicly-funded training,from adult learning to apprenticeships and business courses. Many grew into big, not-for-profit ventures in their own right under the previous government, benefiting from the abolition of the Training and Enterprise Councils and the outsourcing of the government's Business Link advice network.

St Helens, for instance, has grown from a handful of people in 1996 to the 175-strong force it is today. "We are a translator for the public sector," says chief executive Kath Boullen of the chamber's role, "taking targets and services from the public sector and making them useful for the private sector."

Most generate only a tiny proportion of their revenues from membership dues – St Helens' 1,256 members' dues make up 1pc of its income. About 90pc of the rest of St Helens' £11m income comes from public sector contracts from a variety of funding sources and covering everything from training and supporting start-ups to preparing young people for work and finding them jobs.

The St Helens chamber has an impressive subsidiary called Starting Point, run by Pauline Devine, that found work for 1,000 unemployed people last year. There is some sense in matching an employers' organisation with a jobs agency. "If there's a hint of recruitment from a member, the chamber puts it over to us so we can help them," says Mrs Devine. Ms Boullen says: "We can do it better than a college, recruitment agency or training organisation because we have our members."

St Helens' chamber is not the norm. Most chambers don't have a jobs agency. It also houses flexible office space for start-ups – with occupancy running at around two-thirds – from its impressive two year-old offices close to the Pilkington factory. The physical relationship is symbolic. Where once companies like Pilkington generated large numbers of jobs in the town, now the council is the largest employer. The council is also the chamber's biggest single customer, and the leader of council even sits on the chamber's board.

The reason for this joined-up approach is clear. Unemployment is high and St Helens has half the number of businesses that it could have for its population compared with the national average.

As part of its response, the council pays the chamber to hire 80 school leavers and graduates, prepare them for work for three weeks and then place them with local employers that don't have vacancies, with their wages covered for up to six months. The idea is that if the young person can make himself invaluable, the employer will find of way of hiring him.

With her fingers in lots of public funding puddings, Ms Boullen is bracing herself for tougher times but believes that while the chamber may have to cut its cloth, the contracts will not dry up completely. "I imagine it will be harder in the next few years," she says.

Her members appear loyal, with dues steady during the recession and attendance at events up.

At lunch with five St Helens business owners at the chamber, two secured leads to sell their energy efficiency services. Traditional networking by talking and being civil is where the chamber thrives.

Ali Tyrer runs a local department store called Tyrers, a fourth-generation family business. She is a board member on the chamber and calls on "Kath" for help from everything from the store's website to the standards of other shops.

"If we have a vacancy, I can pick up the phone to the chamber and they put us in touch with a group of young people who are desperate for work," she says.

Chris Holmes, marketing director of Zut Media, a digital agency, offers the tantalising image of chamber life compared with other business support: "They are a lot more loving," he says.

Ms Tyrer backs him up: "Everyone in business needs one another, needs friends. We feel better belonging with other people trying to do what we are trying to do."

The best chambers also act as a shortcut to decision makers in the business community and public sector.

Nick Buxton from P&R Labpak, which distributes lab products across the North West, says his business benefited from his position at the chamber. "It helps to be more informed about the decision-making going on in the local environment as it helps the decision-making in my business," is how he puts it.

A second lunch, a week later, in Milton Keynes. Local MPs Iain Stewart and Mark Lancaster share their plans and take questions from chamber members. The audience is city professionals – lawyers, accountants and consultants. Local chamber president Silvia Vitiello, a tax partner with MacIntyre Hudson, says professional service firms dominate the networking events because they are based in the city centre. More traditional chamber members are located further away.

The recession has had its effect on chambers. Some, like Sheffield, have had to slim down as revenues have fallen. Others are holding their own and see value in joining, or returning, to the BCC fold, largely for its ability to lobby Westminster.

Nigel Hutchings, managing director of GWE Business West, which runs the Bath, Bristol and south Gloucestershire chambers, is one of this latter group. "We are only fairly recent converts," he said. "BCC has an accreditation process and we have to jump through those hoops, and for that honour we pay £17.50 a member. For a group of chambers our size, that's about £35,000 a year. We have to ensure we get value for money from that. Thankfully, the BCC has gone through tremendous changes in the past few years and we see it offering much more value. That's why we have rejoined, and why Somerset and Cornwall [chambers] have joined."

The only county outside the BCC network is Devon, which has no county-wide chamber.

Mr Hutchings said: "The BCC 10 years ago was three-piece suits, watch chains and panelled rooms. It has modernised itself, and the way that it is considered by the Government is better. Both Eric Pickles [local government secretary] and Vince Cable [business secretary] see the chambers and the Federation of Small Businesses as being in the lead on the new local enterprise partnerships. That statement in itself is a remarkable change."

Chambers - the facts:

• Chambers have 92,120 members, up from 86,825 in 2009

• Chamber
members employ 4.6m people

• 5,068 chamber-run events were held last year, attended by 204,572 people

• More than 533,540 international trade documents were issued by chambers

• 2,244 people are employed directly
by chambers around the country