Sheffield Chamber of Commerce has received a glowing accreditation from the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) following an external assessment which deemed its achievements ‘first class’, ‘remarkable’ and ‘an example for the whole Chamber movement’.

The city organisation was rewarded with ‘five out of five’ ratings for five of the 13 core competencies and services it was assessed on. The top five scores put Sheffield in the elite company of just a handful of other Chambers throughout Britain to achieve similarly high rankings.

Sheffield received its top scores in Membership, Governance, Finance, Customer Care and Policy and Representation and was also commended for increasing its membership at the fastest rate anywhere in the UK.

The external BCC assessor said: “The flooding of Sheffield in the summer of 2007 was handled really well by the Chamber team and they were able to show their members the true value of their subscriptions.”

The chamber’s membership retention rate of more than 90 per cent was described as “remarkable”, while the assessor also commented in the BCC report:

“They (Sheffield Chamber) have an excellent series of events, they lobby well on behalf of their members, they clearly listen and react to members’ needs and they have a first class membership pack which is an example for the whole Chamber movement to emulate.”

The BCC external assessor also awarded good marks for the remaining eight services or competencies - Information and Communications Technology, Human Resources, International Trade, Marketing and Communications and Planning and Development.

Sheffield Chamber finance director Stephen Mitchell said: “As the BCC assessor noted, the last year could be viewed as a challenging one for the Chamber in terms of the floods but a rewarding one from the viewpoint of what the assessor called our ‘excellent’ 150th anniversary celebrations.

“This report is a fantastic achievement and a credit to the organisation’s progress. The BCC’s comments and scores represent the hard work and dedication of all the Chamber’s many and varied teams and representatives including staff at the Chamber, South Yorkshire International Trade Centre and SENTA, the Chamber’s board and council and all of the forums.”

The BCC report also described policy and representation as a ‘very strong area’ for the Chamber, commented favourably on its planning and development and stated that: “Governance at this Chamber has always been of a very high standard.”

Stephen Mitchell