Bringing Turnaround Into the Policy Spotlight with Milly Camley

A new All-Party Parliamentary Group for Turnaround and Business Improvement has been established to elevate awareness of the turnaround sector and its role in supporting stressed and distressed businesses across the UK. Backed by The Institute for Turnaround as Secretariat, the APPG aims to create a forum for policymakers to better understand the tools, challenges, and opportunities involved in business recovery. In this Q&A, IFT CEO Milly Camley discusses the group’s objectives, its practical agenda, and how the turnaround community plans to engage with government.

1. What gap is this new APPG designed to fill, and why is now the right time for it?

Proceedings in Parliament are often focused on the consequences of business failure –when service providers hit insolvency or people lose their livelihoods through company collapse. This new All-Party Parliamentary Group will provide a forum for parliamentarians and policymakers to learn about the challenges faced by business and sectors in real time, before they hit the newsstands - and the most innovative means that turnaround experts employ to support companies from stress into growth. Why now? We want to demonstrate the power of turnaround excellence – contributing to UK productivity and competitiveness at a crucial and challenging time following shifts in geopolitics and trade – and the challenges and opportunities those forces bring to UK businesses.

2. The APPG is focused on both “turnaround” and “business improvement.” How do you see those concepts working together in practice?

Turnaround experts are situation specialists who bring their skill and knowledge across the growth to crisis curve, so we are interested in sharing insights and expertise relating to transformation, turnaround and growth.

3. What practical steps or initiatives will form part of the APPG’s programme over the coming months?

We will be working with the APPG in the coming period, supported by a business advisory group to look at key areas of inquiry and engagement including new innovative practice in turnaround and sectors experiencing acute stress, including where this particularly impacts on the experiences and lives of constituents. The APPG provides the opportunity to engage with parliamentarians motivated to explore these issues and also to bring insights and recommendations to ministers and other decision makers.

4. How will the APPG engage with SMEs and businesses actually facing distress, rather than remaining a purely policy-driven forum?

The benefit of presenting insights through a turnaround lens is that this brings in the practitioners working closely with SME business leaders and owners. We will also be working with MPs on the ground to engage with SMEs in their constituencies to share experiences and opportunities to succeed in a challenging economic environment.

5. The Institute for Turnaround is supporting the APPG as Secretariat. What does that role involve in practice, and how will IFT contribute to the group’s impact?

 As Secretariat The IFT will support the APPG’s work programme, including with organising events, and thought leadership, as well as administrative requirements. This will include drawing on IFT research and insights from our membership to inform APPG activity.

6. More broadly, what should the turnaround industry be doing to better communicate its value to policymakers and the wider market?

This initiative is obviously part of informing and championing the UK’s turnaround expertise. More broadly it’s important to celebrate success as The IFT does  via our annual awards (this year awards are made on 11 November!), sharing knowledge via thought leadership – and speaking directly to businesses and sectors to understand the early signs of success, the opportunities to avid unnecessary insolvency – and take the fear out of seeking expert help as early as possible.