The Government has issued advice to employers on maintaining productivity and keeping staff engaged during the Rugby World Cup later this year. Guidance on the Business Link website says that with the event kicking off on 9 September 2011, employers may be wondering how to manage an increase in: annual leave requests sickness absence poor […]

The UK has reinforced its opposition to proposals by MEPs to introduce 20 weeks of maternity leave on full pay. Chris Grayling, Employment Minister, visited Brussels on 17 June to attend a meeting of the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) for an update on the Pregnant Workers Directive and repeated the […]

A motivated workforce is a productive workforce and one way to ensure this is to offer an employee share scheme. There are a few different schemes to choose from out there, but an interesting one you may want to consider for your business is an Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) scheme. So what are the benefits […]

Business owners, employees and the public are being urged to blow the whistle on inconsistent and over-zealous enforcement of rules and regulations. The new initiative, launched on 24 June as part of the government’s Red Tape Challenge, asks businesses and the public: which aspects of enforcement do you find most difficult to deal with and […]

UK businesses are set to save millions of pounds a year as a single European patent came a step closer following agreements by ministers at a meeting of the Competitiveness Council in Luxembourg. Ministers meeting on 27 June agreed on the languages regime for the patent – the number of translations which applicants need to […]

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has introduced the latest stage of its move to phase out National Insurance cards. Last year, as part of a drive to reduce costs, it was announced that HMRC would stop issuing plastic cards and send letters instead, saving £820,000 a year. HMRC stopped issuing replacement cards in October 2010, […]

New campaigns targeting VAT defaulters, private tutors and e-marketplaces will be launched by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) over the next year. HMRC said it would be using tools such as web robot software to search the internet and find targeted information about people and companies. Using the software, the department can pinpoint more accurately […]

A new double taxation agreement between the UK and the People’s Republic of China is set to encourage more cross-border trade between the two countries. The agreement was signed in London on 27 June by Foreign Secretary William Hague and Yang Jiechi, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Welcoming the agreement, Mr Hague said: “This new […]

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has launched new guidance to help businesses comply with competition law. The guidance was issued alongside the results of an independent survey of more than 2,000 businesses, carried out for the OFT, which found that 25 per cent felt they knew “a lot” or “a fair amount” about competition […]