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<p>Government officials and Ministers meet weekly with representatives of trade bodies
that represent SMEs, such as the Federation of Small Businesses and the Confederation
of British Industry, to discuss how best to target information at SMEs. We also engage
larger companies to ensure they help prepare smaller companies in their supply chains
for the changes ahead.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>The Government has also prepared
several freely available tools to assist all traders with the new import processes
being introduced from 1 January 2022. This includes the publication and continuous
updating of the Border Operating Model; over 200 webinars delivered by the Cabinet
Office reaching around 20,000 UK and EU traders to date, and a haulier handbook translated
into 17 languages.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>In addition, our ‘Check, Change,
Go’ communications campaign has been designed using polling and insights from SMEs.
Based on these insights, all paid for marketing has been developed to target these
audiences to ensure they are aware of the effect of new rules in place between the
EU and the UK.</p><p>Given much of this activity falls within standard government
business as usual, it is not possible to disaggregate all costs relating to communications
specifically for preparing small and medium sized businesses. However the Cabinet
Office <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/cabinet-office-spend-data"
target="_blank">publishes expenditure on gov.uk</a>, including on public information
campaigns on a rolling monthly basis as part of routine government transparency arrangements.</p><p>
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