News Archive
12/7/2024
What A House Of Commons With Fewer Privately Educated MPs Could Mean For The UK
Elected leaders and representatives across democracies tend to be old, wealthy, male and belong to the ethnic majority of their respective countries. This lack of diversity is a problem: it suggests that those who govern are out of step with the broader society that they seek to represent.
12/7/2024
Security Industry Authority Publishes Business Approval Scheme Consultation Findings
The Security Industry Authority (SIA) has (11 July) published the findings from its public consultation on the future of its business approval scheme. The consultation ran from 22 February to 8 April 2024.
12/7/2024
Delivery Scams - Trading Standards
There are regular reports of delivery scams, with 55% of respondents to last year's Big Scottish Scam Survey having experienced a delivery scam in the past year. One scam text message (shown on the left) says that 'Steven' attempted to deliver to you at 14:23pm.
12/7/2024
Banking Complaints Hit A 10-year High
The Financial Ombudsman has reported that complaints about the banking sector are at their highest level in at least a decade. Concerns about current accounts, credit cards and fraud and scams have driven a significant increase in banking and payment complaints.
12/7/2024
Panic Buttons - Phone Scams -Trading Standards
There have been several recent reports of phone scams where a cold caller says they work for the NHS or a local health team and offers to install a panic button in the resident's property. They ask for personal and card details, supposedly to cover a £1 'installation fee'.
12/7/2024
Britain Desperately Needs More Family Homes - A Tax Cut Might Help Encourage Older People To Downsize
The UK's current housing crisis manifests in several ways, with inadequate numbers of new homes (especially affordable ones), high house prices and rising rents. There are major affordability problems especially for young people, and growing inequalities with older and retired homeowners, as they amass substantial additional wealth through rising house prices.
12/7/2024
The Chancellor Has Tied Her Own Hands With Her Fiscal Rules - Here's Why She Should Change Them
The new government has made boosting economic growth its central goal. Chancellor Rachel Reeves wasted no time in announcing changes to the planning system designed to encourage more housebuilding and infrastructure investment.
12/7/2024
Investment Scams - Cryptocurrency - Trading Standards
The number of reported investment scams relating to social media platforms has trebled since 2019, with total losses rising from £13m to £75 million. 66% of investment scam cases begin on social media, with Instagram and Facebook as the most common sources.
12/7/2024
A Four-day Week Can Work - If Staff And Employers Can Deal With The Challenges
It sounds like a dream for many people currently working five days a week: how about just doing four days and having a long weekend? When the weekends feel too short and the pressure of holding down a full-time job pushes workers to the limit, a four-day working week may appear very attractive. How does this happen in practice though, and can it become commonplace? Well, recent news about four-day working week trials show different outcomes.
12/7/2024
Voter Turnout Lowest In Decades - An Expected Result And Electoral Rules May Have Played A Role
Labour won the 2024 election by a landslide. But a significant story from the night's results was the low turnout across the nation - the lowest since 2001.
12/7/2024
HMRC Scams - Trading Standards
HMRC is warning customers to be wary of scam emails, texts and phone calls in the run up to the Self Assessment deadline on 31 July. HMRC received over 202,000 reports of suspicious messages about tax last year, of which over 74,000 were offering bogus tax rebates.
11/7/2024
Times Changing As First Artificial Intelligence Job Appears For Building Company On Caithness Web Site
Junior AI Developer (Multimodal AI) About the company: Norscot is a thriving company that has been innovating in offsite construction since 1984, specialising in both timber frame kit home and fenestration systems. We are aiming to develop a smart inventory management system based on Multimodal AI applications.11/7/2024
Construction Output In Great Britain: May 2024
Monthly construction output is estimated to have grown by 1.9% in volume terms in May 2024; this follows a fall of 1.1% in April 2024 (revised from a fall of 1.4%). The increase in monthly output came from increases in both new work (2.7%), and repair and maintenance (0.8%); anecdotal evidence from survey returns noted that warmer weather contributed to increased output in May, with the Met Office confirming in their Monthly climate summary (PDF, 4.6MB) that May 2024 was the warmest on record.11/7/2024
UK To Stand With Ukraine For As Long As It Takes, Pm To Tell NATO
The international community cannot waver in the face of relentless Russian aggression, the Prime Minister will told NATO yeserday. Prime Minister Keir Starmer recommits to £3 billion a year of military support for Ukraine until 2030/31 and for as long as needed He will warn Allies that the frontline defence of the Euro-Atlantic region is the Ukrainian trenches.11/7/2024
Record Inward Investment Secured - More businesses invest in Scotland
A record number of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) projects were secured in 2023 in Scotland. According to EY's annual independent analysis of inward investment, 142 FDI projects were secured last year, an increase of 12.7% on 2022 and double the rate of growth experienced across the UK.11/7/2024
Joint Statement By Defence Ministers Of The Drone Coalition
Defence Secretary John Healey joined allies and partners in signing a document establishing a framework for the international capability coalition to supply drones for Ukraine. We, nations of the Drone Coalition, recognize the importance of the support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia's aggression.
11/7/2024
HMRC Launches VAT Registration Estimator
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has launched a digital tool to help businesses estimate what registering for VAT may mean for them. The VAT Registration Estimator has been developed after feedback from small businesses suggested an online tool would be helpful to show when their turnover could require businesses to register for VAT and its effect on profits.
11/7/2024
Index Of Services, UK - May 2024
We estimate that monthly services output increased by 0.3% in May 2024, following an increase of 0.3% in April 2024 (upwardly revised 0.1 percentage points). The Index of Services (IoS) saw monthly increases in 8 of the 14 sectors in May 2024 with the largest contribution to monthly growth coming from "wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles" (1.8%); the next largest increases were "professional, scientific and technical activities" (1.0%); and "accommodation and food services activities" (2.4%).11/7/2024
UK Trade - May 2024
The value of goods imports decreased by £2.3 billion (4.7%) in May 2024, primarily driven by a fall in imports from the EU. The substantial fall in imports from the EU was because of a fall in imports of machinery and transport equipment, following a rise seen the previous month.11/7/2024
