HLAS

High electricity using businesses, like steel and paper mills, could see further relief under new proposals to help subsidise their electricity costs. The UK government is consulting on the option to increase the level of exemption from 85% of costs up to 100% for certain environmental and policy costs. The consultation closes on 16 September 2022. This reflects higher UK industrial electricity prices than those of other countries, including in Europe. This could hamper investment, competition and commercial viability for hundreds of businesses in industries including steel, paper, glass, ceramics, and cement, and risk them relocating from the UK. See: Government to consider [...]

Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) are offering manufacturing businesses an opportunity to register for individual one-to-one meetings to explore the uses of artificial intelligence (AI) within their operations and learn how to access Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) funding to address their challenges. The AI team at Innovate UK KTN, in collaboration with the KTP programme and the Manufacturing Made Smarter Innovation Network, will virtually support manufacturing businesses from all sectors to explore the uses of artificial intelligence within their operations. During these sessions, they will help identify projects that can be funded through the KTP programme – an open [...]

The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are for outstanding achievement by UK businesses in the categories of: Innovation International trade Sustainable development Promoting opportunity through social mobility Winners have reported benefiting from worldwide recognition, increased commercial value, greater press coverage and a boost to staff morale. The closing date for applications is 6 September 2022. See: The Queen's Awards for Enterprise: About the awards - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Organised by Innovate UK and Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), the event will offer new insights about what materials research and innovations are currently happening. The event will offer targeted seminars on a range of cutting-edge areas, such as materials for net zero, including materials for: The production, transportation and storage of hydrogen. The use of hydrogen in low carbon production of materials. The scale-up of graphene and metamaterials for industrial applications. Organisers will also hold sessions on technology transfer from UK’s research base, focusing on high performance, net zero materials, the Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge and Foundation [...]

There is a new two-day extended reality (XR) conference on 28 and 29 September 2022 in Sheffield. 'Immerse Technology Conference: Understanding & Application in Industry' is an XR workshop and demonstration event that will focus on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies for enterprise. Organised by Made Smarter Innovation, Immerse UK and AREA (Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance), in collaboration with the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, the conference will give you a chance to: Meet like-minded professionals. Learn more about the challenges, benefits and possibilities of enterprise XR. Discover use cases. Speak to organisations implementing and developing the [...]

Sustainable Fashion Week (SFW) is a week of community activity, gathering people together to inspire, upskill and empower the community to make sustainable fashion choices. The Charity Retail Association (CRA) is sponsoring Sustainable Fashion Week, held from the 16th to the 25th of September 2022, with community events happening from the 19th to the 25th. You can host your event at any time during this period. The four themes of the week’s activities are: Re-wear Repurpose Regenerate Reconnect Each theme has calls to action that support a turn towards sustainability and away from “fast fashion”. UK charity shops divert 339,000 [...]

Artificial intelligence technology to optimise welfare in pigs, agri-robots to help speed up vegetable harvests, and automation to increase fruit crop yields, are just some of the research and development projects to receive funding through the Farming Innovation Programme. Details of these new innovative projects come as further support was announced for farmers and growers with novel ideas to help grow food production, encourage sustainable practices and increase productivity. The next rounds of the Feasibility Projects and the Small R&D Partnership Project competitions are due to open shortly. The £16.5 million of funding is designed to drive innovation in agriculture and horticulture and is [...]

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has urged UK organisations to prepare for an extended period of heightened threat in relation to the Russia-Ukraine war. There may be periods when the cyber threat is heightened for an extended period, for example, as a result of geopolitical tensions. During these periods, organisations will experience: An initial acute phase (when they are required to strengthen their defences and address vulnerabilities), followed by: A protracted phase (when a strengthened cyber posture should be maintained to manage the residual risk from the increase in threat). Over time, the cyber threat may come down again, [...]

The Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) has been introduced to help UK businesses access products from around the globe at lower prices, with the aim of reducing costs for UK consumers. The UK Government launched the DCTS in addition to the products that developing countries can already export to the UK duty-free, and could now mean that 99% of goods imported from Africa under the scheme will enter the UK duty-free. The scheme means that a wide variety of products - from clothes and shoes to foods that aren’t widely produced in the UK, like olive oil and tomatoes – [...]

“Umbrella” companies are often set up by employment agencies to supply workers to end user clients. Many of these are compliant with the tax rules, but some use contrived arrangements that claim to allow agency workers and contractors to pay less tax on their earnings. HMRC have successfully challenged many of these arrangements. HMRC view these arrangements as tax avoidance schemes that use disguised remuneration arrangements to pay the workers. The umbrella company might claim that a payment is non-taxable to try to avoid paying National Insurance contributions (NICs) - currently 15.05% for employers. The arrangements also purport to avoid [...]