HLAS

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is recommending that businesses and organisations establish incident response, disaster recovery and business continuity plans to address the heightened risk of ransomware attacks. The recommendation accompanies ICO's new guidance, and a checklist of actions businesses should review to assess their preparedness against potential ransomware attacks on their organisation. Ransomware is an increasingly prevalent form of cyber-attack. Personal data breaches from the ICO's caseload during 2020/2021 have seen a steady increase in the number and severity caused by ransomware. The guidance presents eight scenarios about the most common ransomware compliance issues the ICO has seen: Scenario [...]

From July 2022, certification, documentary, ID and physical checks are due to be introduced for animal products from the European Union (EU) into Great Britain (GB). The UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) want to start providing businesses with information ahead of further import controls being introduced from July 2022. Defra will be running a series of webinars and Q&A sessions that will provide detailed information on the steps you need to take to continue importing animal products from the EU. You have the opportunity to submit up to three questions when you register, and we [...]

The UK Space Agency will co-host a global summit to agree new ways of ensuring a safe, sustainable and secure space environment, including tackling space debris which threatens the satellites we rely on in our daily lives. The 4th Summit for Space Sustainability, hosted with the Secure World Foundation in London on the 22 and 23 June, brings together government, industry and academics from around the world to discuss how to ensure the sustainability of space operations. Orbital congestion created by space debris is one of the biggest global challenges facing the space sector. There are currently around 30,000 pieces of [...]

There are now over 40 lenders willing to lend unsecured small business loans in the UK. Whilst the majority of these will require a personal guarantee (PG) from directors, some do not. The difficulty being they all have different criteria, different application processes and different sectors they prefer lending to. A complex and time consuming task for business owners. Our experts save you time by guiding you through these processes and they will work quickly to understand the business and financial requirements of the applicant, introducing only those lenders who can meet those needs and who are most likely to [...]

During the COVID-19 pandemic many employees were required to work from home.  Since restrictions have been lifted, employers have put in place “hybrid” working arrangements whereby employees work from home on certain days and in the office for other days. Some of these arrangements are contractual and others are arranged on a voluntary basis. HMRC have recently updated their internal guidance in their Employment Income Manual to deal with situations where employees are travelling between home and their office which, in most cases, will continue to be treated as ordinary commuting and not an allowable business journey. The exception is [...]

Saving used to be the foundation of good financial management. Putting cash away to deal with emergencies, or to build up a cash sum for anything from a deposit on a first home to our old age was the first step to financial security. The banks and building societies were only too pleased to help us become savers. They needed our cash to lend out to other customers and they would pay interest to encourage us to leave it on deposit with them, but times have changed. It looks as though the banks don’t want your savings and they are [...]

Below are a few examples of some great questions from our “101 Great Marketing Questions” template we keep for clients to help think about existing marketing activities and how you can improve on them. Not all the questions will be relevant to your business, but it is a valuable exercise and may help you come up with a few ideas for growing your customer base. Why do our customers buy from us now? What new ways of generating customers can we use to build our business? Which of our marketing efforts brought in the bulk of our clients? What percentage [...]

Digital Security by Design (DSbD) challenge and Digital Catapult have launched a new programme for developers and organisations to experiment with DSbD technologies. The Technology Access Programme has been developed to build a pipeline and community of developers and technology companies to trial and experiment with the new DSbD technologies, to address the cyber security challenges faced by embedded product and software companies. What is available? To support a six-month experimentation period with the DSbD technologies within their own organisations, programme participants will have access to: the Morello Board and CHERI prototype architecture and hardware technical guidance £15,000 in funding [...]

Innovate UK’s ‘Driving the Electric Revolution’ challenge, part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £4.5 million in projects building talent for the future. The aim of this competition is to create and deliver course content and materials that will support skills, talent and training across Power Electronics, Machines and Drives (PEMD) manufacturing and supply chains; building awareness of PEMD and filling key gaps in the UK's workforce talent and training capabilities. Opportunities could include but are not limited to: schools’ engagement apprenticeships and internships upskilling and reskilling of existing workforce technical courses and vocational training undergraduate, postgraduate [...]