APPENDIX 12
Memorandum submitted by Meccasonics Ltd
Further to your recent enquiry we have pleasure
in offering our thoughts on the export licensing process, we hope
that these will be of assistance.
On 15 October 1997 our company applied for an
export licence, having received a refusal, we lodged an appeal
on 8 April 1998, on 14 October our appeal was successful and a
licence was issued.
The original application was for the export
of a piece of equipment to replace an existing item that had previously
been supplied under an export licence. The application was accompanied
by the full technical specification of the equipment and an end
user undertaking regarding nuclear issues etc.
From the date that we applied for the licence
to the date of issue we did not receive a single technical query
from the DTI about it. The application was for a custom piece
of equipment and we therefore feel that, at no stage, did the
DTI have the necessary information to deal with the application.
The original application took six months to
be rejected, any attempts to speed the issue were met with the
comment that "if you want a quick answer it will be no".
We are aware that guidelines state that you should not enter into
contract until you have the licence, unfortunately the contract
is an integral part of the application. Our company had a customer
relying on delivery of the goods that we were completely unable
to give time scales to.
The DTI should be asked to take the role of
sales executive and tell a prospective overseas customer that
he would like to supply the goods but there is a chance that he
couldn't at all and even if things were OK he could not give the
slightest hint of a delivery date. I suspect that this kind of
honest salesmanship would have a vast affect on the UK balance
of payments.
Upon refusal of the application we were informed
that no other company in Europe would be allowed to export the
same item. As the item was of our manufacture we find it strange
that the DTI felt able to control this and that it was in fact
obvious that any other company would give it a different part
number and carry on regardless.
It might also be pointed out that restrictions
on other companies from exporting would have cheered our staff
greatly as they collected their unemployment benefit. The activities
of the DTI came close to bankrupting a small company.
Upon appealing against the decision we endured
a further six months of inactivity, questions about progress were
again "blanked", our customer by this stage was becoming
extremely agitated.
At this stage a policy of nuisance was adopted,
the DTI officers had been constantly informing us that they could
not act until they received information from defence advisors,
twice daily telephone calls to request whether they had received
this information seemed to do the trick and a licence was soon
issued.
I am certain that the DTI would refute most
of my allegations and as usual hide behind a veil of secrecy and
bureaucracy, unfortunately they claim to be in existence to assist
exporters, a role they clearly are not fulfilling.
Guidelines on exporting state that you should
only apply for an export licence if you feel that it is required,
one might suggest that any company that has been through the process
would think very hard before applying again; this logic dictates
that irresponsible companies will try to export goods unlicensed,
responsible companies will just cease exporting.
Meccasonics, although a small company, has been
a major exporter for 30 years and would like to continue in this
role, the directors of the company are all British nationals and
patriotic with it. In order to maintain these conditions we hope
that the Committees will report to Parliament the current failings
of the DTI and bring about the greatly needed changes.
A body that provides guidelines and answers
queries would aid British industry, the current set up merely
dissuades potential exporters.
23 February 2000
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