RAPID RESPONSES December 1, 2011 Criticism, audited I welcome Mario Cientanni’s support for our proposals to increase audit exemptions [Red tape around audit is proving hard to untangle, yesterday]. I don’t agree that banks will continue to require audits as a condition of borrowing, and the British Bankers Association backs this up. We realise that not all companies will wish [...]
Rebuilding UK infrastructure as an engine for growth is a task for private companies November 30, 2011 IN TUESDAY’S Autumn Statement, the chancellor committed an additional £25bn in public spending on infrastructure over the next three years. The importance of this promise isn’t in the Keynesian speed of the payback in employment (in fact modern road and rail infrastructure has long lead-in times), but in the significant benefits of great infrastructure in [...]
Red tape around audit is proving hard to untangle November 30, 2011 THE Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has published proposals to reduce financial reporting requirements for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and subsidiaries. EU rules mean that to classify as small for accounting purposes, a company must comply with two out of three criteria: gross assets of no more than £3.26m; turnover of no [...]
The unions are holding back better pay deals November 30, 2011 IT MIGHT have been the worst general strike for a generation, but it clearly failed to take off. Apart from the closure of my children’s school, and the vast army of police protecting parliament, I honestly didn’t notice much impact from it. As the Prime Minister said, in the end it felt a bit of [...]
RAPID RESPONSES November 30, 2011 Called out on pay Allister Heath suggests several reforms for pay in his recent editor’s letter [Rights and wrongs of boardroom pay, last Wednesday]. Among them, he argues that in his proposed system “pay would be linked very closely to a shareholder value and would go down as well as up.” However, he fails to [...]
Pride before a fall: Osborne looked to special interests, not the UK’s perilous state November 29, 2011 THE Autumn Statement showed that George Osborne has failed to grasp the gravity of the economic crisis facing the UK. Urgent action was needed to brace the economy for double-dip recession and the fallout from the euro crisis. Instead, the chancellor announced a big increase in government borrowing, together with a series of measures that, [...]
The challenge to banks: Who will lead on service? November 29, 2011 WITH Virgin Money’s purchase of Northern Rock, hopes have been raised of a customer service revolution in the UK’s retail banking sector. Someone certainly needs to step up to the plate. Who dares to be different for the customer? That is the challenge waiting to be met. And it can be. The malaise is deep. [...]
Counting the costs of health and safety laws November 29, 2011 EMPLOYMENT minister Chris Grayling has announced plans to streamline workplace safety regulations and “put common sense back at the heart of health and safety”. As usual, common sense is here an excuse for not thinking very hard. If Grayling approached the matter in a principled way, he would realise that, rather being streamlined, workplace safety [...]
RAPID RESPONSES November 29, 2011 Management cuts [Re: There’s one economic policy the coalition has yet to try, yesterday] I definitely agree with the comment about the NHS and government bodies employing too many more managers than staff needed to actually get the job done. It has happened in many private sector areas too. I work in architecture and especially [...]
There’s one economic policy the coalition has yet to try: Spend less to boost growth November 28, 2011 TODAY’S sound and fury around the chancellor’s autumn statement hides a remarkable consensus shared by government and opposition alike. Public spending needs to be cut, but not by very much. Increases in tax rates are a regrettable necessity, and any idea of actually cutting the tax burden on working people is out of the question. [...]