Mr. Shane Hamill:

I thank Senator Lombard. We have been running the Brexit barometer since 2017. We have run three Brexit barometers and in 2020, we launched what we called the "readiness radar", expanding the scope beyond Brexit to Covid-19 to sustainability, talent and all the other matters currently facing the sector. We are confident the Brexit barometer and readiness radar are the most robust and detailed risk diagnostics in respect of Brexit anywhere. These diagnostics are recognised as such and won European risk awards because of the detailed data sets.

Essentially, this allows us to work with a client on a bespoke one-to-one basis and to identify sector-level trends around Brexit preparedness, whether it is on supply chain and logistics, customs, customer relationships, finance, market diversification and so on. As it evolved over the year, client preparedness and confidence on certain Brexit matters have climbed significantly. One example is confidence in supply chain design and partners, and their preparedness has climbed a lot.

We have seen jumps in the gathering of economic operators' registration and identification, EORI, numbers, which is an issue for the sectors outside food and drink. These are needed to do business with a third country. Our clients registered for EORI numbers very early on in 2017 and 2018. We have not seen as much progress as we would have liked in customs compliance, largely because of the distraction around tariffs and companies have missed the fact that customs compliance, which is an inevitability come January, will add cost as well. All these non-tariff barriers are a concern for companies. What we have really focused on this year on the back of the Brexit barometer and readiness radar is looking at the hidden costs of declarations, including transit declarations, health certificates and so on, or the cost of hiring a customs agent.

There are other areas that we have not been able to benchmark year on year because the nature of those questions has changed. We would always have been looking at whether a client has engaged with UK customers on Brexit and outlined issues with respect to delays in the supply chain. This year we have seen a major jump in the commercial scope of those discussions. We have moved away from possible delays in the supply chain to looking at the cost of those non-tariff barriers and tariffs, as well as how this might affect commercial contracts. That is largely how it has evolved over the past four years.