Fiona Dear, Co-Director at the Restart Project: “In the next 10 to 15 years, we could lose all repair services that aren’t phones or laptops”

With International Repair Day celebrating its tenth anniversary across 3,000 global events, Fiona Dear, Co-Director of The Restart Project, is driving a campaign that extends far beyond grass-roots fix-it cafés.
Beyond the community and societal benefits of fixing, Fiona is pushing for urgent political and economic reform. In this interview, we dive into the business of repair whilst exploring high-street economic realities, the impact of local Repair Vouchers, and breaking big-tech’s OEM monopolies.

From delayed UK circular economy legislation to tackling a looming repair skills shortage, Fiona explains why repair’s future demands smart regulation alongside community spirit.

There were over 3,000 events happening globally under the banner of International Repair Day, which celebrated its 10th year. Tell us what happened this year?

Yes. The theme of this year’s Repair Day was ‘Repair Brings Us Together’. Anyone who’s had anything to do with a repair cafe will 100% know why we chose that. We wanted to spark the idea of festivals this year as it felt like a good way of bringing people together to fix things.

We’re really delighted that it resulted in some really interesting events. Pavia and Vienna have got huge repair festivals going on and one in Bristol, which is almost all the way through October. We organised one in London at the Barbican and funded people around the country to hold festivals or different events. There was a Repair and Share Festival in Portsmouth, Northern Ireland did events which brought refugees together with members of the community. One event looked at the future of a coastal town so they wove that in with repair by going beyond and crossing over with other issues, bringing in new audiences. There was loads of creativity going on.

Given how big Repair Day has become, does curating it feel like a full-time job at this point?

Yeah, for sure. Repair Day just has a life of its own. Some countries really go for it, like France. They always have over 1,000 events. We’ve started the planning and started the thinking about it earlier in the year so that people have a chance to do more ambitious events. It’s now part of the calendar as opposed to something to think about but it’s just been getting bigger. We’re getting new countries signed onto the map every day, which is really exciting.

The repair movement has a dual purpose. There’s the joy of fixing and the countless societal benefits of the community but there’s also generating awareness. There’s a huge public demand for repair services which isn’t being served on a political level. How do you use the positive energy of the events to drive that heavier awareness?

I would say the political approach was peppered through Repair Day this year. We launched an e-action right at the end of August encouraging MPs to write to UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Some letters have been going to him. We always encourage repair groups to invite their MPs or councillors along to events. Our milestones this year include a Parliament event with 90 MPs present and 160 MPs now signed up to the declaration, which shows there’s a mass of Parliamentary support.

We’re moving into another phase. This involves working closely with a handful of MPs and it feels like we’re all on the same side. It didn’t feel like we were lobbying them and asking them to do things. They were coming up with ideas of how we can just move things forward and get the UK’s Circular Economy growth plan out. It’s a year since it was supposed to be published.

Have you been told why the Circular Economy growth plan has been delayed?

Under the last administration, the bill was delayed because it was stuck. It has to be signed off by all the government departments and it was blocked. The worst-case scenario would be that they just completely shelf the plan. Thankfully it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. I’ve heard that new ministers are getting their heads around it as they can’t release it without understanding. Of course it still needs to be signed off by Number 10 and Treasury. We’re back to making sure that Number 10 and Treasury are hearing from as many people and MPs as possible so that they know it will be noticed if it disappears. We need to make sure it’s not endlessly delayed because political bills can be.

Restart has been at the front, in the UK, about raising the political awareness for repair and circularity. Would you say there has been a positive shift by businesses and consumers towards a circular economy?

I think so. It’s a bit cliché, but many people are really seeing the circular economy as a win-win-win. Obviously, there’s the environment. It’s a way of creating jobs. There’s the social value and the community benefit and people see that it really fits in with the reindustrialisation agenda. It’s something that different regional authorities can just lean into in their own way that works for them because there are lots of different ways to do a circular economy. We’re not fighting opposition. We’re just fighting inertia.

When it comes to technology manufacturers and OEMs, there’s usually a push toward self-regulation but it’s clear that circularity can’t be voluntary. Do you feel there’s enough regulation in place at the moment? Where’s the right balance?

No, I absolutely think we need regulation. The good news is that some businesses aren’t waiting for regulation. They’re going ahead and promoting repair but we 100% know that the regulation in Europe has made big tech companies make their phones more repairable across the world. They’re not gonna do it if they’re not made to unless there’s an economic incentive. We need regulation even if some companies are doing it already to provide a level playing field. We need to ensure that those out front aren’t at a disadvantage against others that are doing things at the minimum cost possible.

Speaking of costs, The Restart Project’s Fixing Factories provide low-cost or free high-street repairs at 5 locations in London. What are they demonstrating about the business and economics of repair?

We now have five sites open. We’re trying different scales of sites with some that offer more activities than others. We’ll get more of a sense, as we get data, of what you lose from having someone with less time running the site. Is that the better way of doing it because then you’re in more communities? Or do you kind of lose too much of the impact? We’ll see soon.

We’re really thinking creatively about the funding model for this and there are some brilliant conversations happening. We’ve been quite transparent. We’ve put out a call and saying, ‘Who wants to work with us on this?’ to see if there’s funding partners or other types of partners that can kind of help us carry on into the future. There’s a lot of creative thinking going on with that.

The sites are working really brilliantly and there is loads of interest in them. We’ve been able to talk about the impact across the sites, which is really significant. For example, 74% of the people visiting a Fixing Factory go to the High Street just for the Fixing Factory. I really think that’s important. It really does show that people want to have their stuff repaired, which is the underlying message to anyone who is opposing this. The will of the people is that they want to get it fixed.

I was just chatting to a lot of partners and it feels like the norm is a patchwork of funding coming from lots of different places, lots of different projects. That’s the reality of running a circular economy project.

We know that one of the key barriers to repair is price. What can be done to make repairs cheaper?

That is part of the right to repair conversation. I know that in Europe, our colleagues who campaigned on the European legislation were disappointed that the legislation wasn’t stronger on costs. We need stronger legislation to sort that out. The other thing is there are alternatives to the OEM parts. However, we need to not have parts pairing that’s gonna kind of stop them from working properly. Manufacturers have got it both ways. They’re charging loads and they’re trying to kind of crackdown on any competition. Legislation is the only way we’re going to break monopolies on spare parts.

Is there still a desire to reduce VAT on repairs?

We’re pushing for that particularly hard at the moment. It’s something that is being considered, but VAT cuts are notoriously hard to secure. We want to really get some numbers on what that would mean and what the benefits would be because from talking to people who are on the Circular Economy Task Force, there was a lot of pushback because there just wasn’t very much evidence. We need to provide the evidence, which is going to be the next phase in the VAT ask.

The Restart Project has recently completed a trial on Repair Vouchers in London, which lower the cost of repairs. What did you learn?

I’d say the top learnings are that repair vouchers are a bit of a win. They’re really popular with the local population and they reach the people that need to be reached. We know they were popular with young audiences, and 59% of the people that used them were on low incomes, who are exactly the people that should be accessing repair vouchers.

We definitely found it harder than we thought to get businesses to take part, but that was linked to the reality that they’re on a really tight price margin. They don’t have time to spend on additional admin and systems.

The project gave us the opportunity to get under the bonnet of what repair businesses are out there and what they’re doing.

What surprised you about that?

We all know it’s quite easy to find phone and laptop repair shops but it’s actually getting really hard to find options for repair of other small electricals.

Most of the ones that we did work with had been in business for decades and were edging towards retirement. We weren’t seeing any new shops starting up. There’s a real sense that in the next 10 to 15 years, we could lose all repair services that aren’t phones or laptops.

There’s been a genuine skills shortage in small electronics for many years in the UK. It’s an unresolved issue?

It is. There’s movement in that area with government with getting more technical skills at GCSE level, which sounds brilliant but that doesn’t include repair at the moment.

Companies are having to kind of create their own training programs, which is fine if you’re a big business, but it doesn’t work for small high-street businesses. So it means that there’s this ageing population that can repair and we’re not seeing a new influx. That’s what we need government to stimulate.

More interviews by Lee Grant

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• How Google’s Steven Nickel is revolutionizing device repairability