HLAS

Last week Amazon announced that, for warehouse workers, it is to offer parents term-time only contracts.  The new contracts would guarantee those who care for school-age children, including guardians, six weeks of holiday in the summer and two weeks over the Easter and Christmas breaks. Employees will be entitled to all full-time benefits. Following a recent UK Government consultation, flexible working will become the default for millions of employees who will be able to request flexible working from day one of their employment. Flexible working doesn’t just mean a combination of working from home and in the office – it [...]

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has updated its guidance on managing health and safety for employers. Employers are responsible for managing health and safety in their business. This includes managing risks and taking practical steps to protect workers and others from harm. Managing risk is just one part of health and safety management. You must also have arrangements in place to: make the right plans; implement those plans; check they are working; and act if they are not. By doing this, you should be able to ensure: your risks stay controlled; and you provide a safe working environment for [...]

The Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS) is for non-domestic customers that use energy provided by licence-exempt suppliers, where prices paid are pegged to wholesale prices. This is energy taken from the public electricity or gas grid, or received via wire or pipe. The scheme will provide support between 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. Further information on how and when to apply for support under the EBDS will be published in due course. Energy and Trade Intensive Industries (ETII) If you’re eligible for the higher level of support to businesses and organisations, you will need to apply for this support. [...]

Cyber Essentials is a Government backed scheme that will help you to protect your organisation, whatever its size, against a whole range of the most common cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks come in many shapes and sizes, but the vast majority are very basic in nature, carried out by relatively unskilled individuals. They’re the digital equivalent of a thief trying your front door to see if it’s unlocked. Our advice is designed to prevent these attacks. Cyber Essentials This self-assessment option gives you protection against a wide variety of the most common cyber-attacks. This is important because vulnerability to basic attacks can mark [...]

Listed below are a number of live HMRC webinars that will help employers with payroll. The webinars are free and last around an hour: Expenses and benefits for your employees – phones, internet, and homeworking Tue 27 Jun at 11:45am Expenses and benefits for your employees - if your employees have more than one workplace Fri 16 Jun at 11:45am Expenses and benefits for your employees - travel Fri 23 Jun at 9:45am Company directors - payroll and you Mon 5 Jun at 9:45am Expenses and benefits for your employees - company cars, vans, and fuel Thu 15 Jun at [...]

Innovation has generally been recognised as essential for value creation, both for individual companies and for the UK economy as a whole. The development of new ideas, processes, and technologies and their flow across different sectors is a significant driver of economic growth and productivity. Recently, innovation has also been identified as crucial to the transition of the economy away from fossil fuels and carbon-intensive business activities. There are many factors that affect whether and how businesses innovate, for example the availability of skills, capital, and government policy measures such as tax incentives. However, none are more important that the [...]

Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax will require businesses to keep digital accounting records and submit quarterly returns to HMRC. These changes will apply to businesses, self-employed individuals and landlords with turnover over £50,000 from 6 April 2026. Those with turnover above £30,000 will be mandated to comply from 6 April 2027 and other businesses and landlords may be mandated at a later date. Since MTD was announced, we have been working with many of our clients to help them streamline the way they keep their books and help them prepare for digital bookkeeping ahead of the law change. [...]

A company might have a great product or service but without a business growth strategy to help it define, articulate, and communicate where it is going, it may not grow at all! A growth strategy starts with identifying and accessing opportunities within your market. The strategy addresses how your company is going to evolve to meet the challenges of today and in the future. A growth strategy gives your company purpose, and it answers questions about your long-term plans. Having a growth strategy is important because it keeps your company working towards goals that go beyond what is happening in [...]

The government is changing regulations to allow longer trailers on GB roads, which it estimates will save 70,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. These longer trailers, known as longer semi-trailers (LST) measure up to 2.05 metres longer than a standard semi-trailer and can be towed by a lorry. The move follows an 11-year trial to ensure LSTs are used safely on roads, and operators will be encouraged to put extra safety checks and training in place. The trial demonstrated that LSTs were involved in around 61% fewer personal injury collisions than conventional lorries. Legislation was laid before the UK parliament on [...]

UK registered businesses can apply for funding to develop digital applications to solve challenges in delivering net zero for places. Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £1.5 million through this competition, as part of the Net Zero Living programme. The aim of this competition is to support ambitious, early-stage digital focussed businesses in developing and delivering net zero in relation to challenges based on place. This must be done through data driven digital applications and by collaborating with potential customers and product users. By accelerating their journey, the funders hope to create high growth businesses [...]