Third World Britain

I had the doubtful pleasure of driving around the majority of the M25 this week and have to say I was appalled by its current state of repair and that of other adjoining roads. In one section of road works near Watford, where outside lane traffic was maintained in a single carriageway, the potholes were so deep I feared my suspension had actually collapsed.

I remember being told when I flew around the world in the 1970’s that a third world country was one that struggled to compete because of a lack of one or usually more of the following: health, education, employment, physical infrastructure, money, and focused leadership. I wonder if the UK would stand up to close scrutiny in the current economic climate?.

APA will again be writing to Government (although recognises that they are responsible for less than 10% of the total road infrastructure) asking for its strategy for repair. Would members please let me have their stories from around the country.

If you have a problem with potholes or damage caused by them, you can also go to http://www.potholes.co.uk/

Gareth, APA

Wot Bot?

Online scammers already have the potential to take large amounts of money from business (and individual) bank accounts, small company bosses have been warned this week. APA feels this is a major concern and should be the subject of Board debate in the coming year.

Luis Corrons, technical director for Panda Security, said "Small and medium companies are a major target and have little security in place to defend against attacks and they are being mounted on an almost daily basis.”

He explained how one company in Bilbao, Spain, became infected by a Trojan virus and had £350,000 stolen from its bank account. He explained that company bosses must take precautions to protect all hardware, as a single infection on a single computer can reap havoc. He explained how bot herders can send spam from a company IP address, leading to all of a company's web connections becoming blacklisted by their internet service provider.

Security firm Symantec (Norton Security Products) reported this week that three-quarters of businesses around the world have been targeted by hackers during the last 12 months.

Gareth

Lingo translation - A bot herder (or bot master) is the originator of a botnet (a jargon term for a collection of software agents or bits, that run autonomously and automatically) and can control the group remotely for nefarious purposes

The Second Best Job in the World - after PA

It sounds like a wind-up. But one lucky person is really about to be paid £20,000 to spend the year on holiday. An online travel company has launched an unlikely search for a candidate who will receive a monthly pay packet to holiday around the world, all expenses paid for the next 12 months. The successful applicant will live the dream while travelling abroad every month as a 'real' holiday reviewer for lowcostholidays.com. All the holiday reviewer will be expected to do is to provide honest reviews of their experiences via regular online blog updates.

And don’t worry about your credentials - the role doesn't require any conventional academic qualifications - just the ability to social network and a love of travel. Paul Evans, CEO of lowcostholidays.com said: "For anyone who fancies a year out, enjoys sunning themselves and won't miss talk of the recession, this really is the dream job. "We're calling it a 'joliday' - less job, more holiday."

If you get my voicemail when you call, I may have applied.

Shelley, APA

Reported in Express.co.uk by Julian White

Controlling behaviour

Research by the NSPCC suggests that 25% of girls aged 13 to 17 had experienced physical violence from a boyfriend and a third had been pressured into sexual acts they did not want.

The children's charity said it was alarmed by the number of young people who viewed abuse in relationships as normal. Diana Sutton of the NSPCC said she hoped a new Home Office advertising campaign would encourage teenagers to come together to tackle the problem. "Many teenagers perhaps don't talk to their parents and maybe it's not that comfortable to talk to a teacher," she said.

Psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos said the results of the survey were "quite startling" and felt that many girls had an expectation that "boys will be boys" and violence would happen anyway.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said it was essential to change attitudes in order to stop abuse against females. He said: "We want to see young people in safe and happy relationships and this means tackling attitudes towards abuse at an early age, before patterns of violence can occur. We hope this campaign will help teenagers to recognise the signs of abuse and equip them with the knowledge and confidence to seek help, as well as understanding the consequences of being abusive or controlling in a relationship."

APA

The Pale One speaks out!

I was hugely impressed by Girls Aloud member Nicola Roberts’ challenge to the nation's obsession with tanning in her BBC 3 documentary ‘The Truth about Tanning’ (see it on BBC iPlayer). She has clearly felt pressurised in the past to ‘colour up’ and battles with the toughest problem of all, being naturally pale.

Nicola went on a quest to highlight the problems of an increasingly tan obsessed Britain as skin cancer and other serious health concerns connected with harmful sun rays are on the rise. As with Michael Jackson’s bizarre obsession to look whiter, so the extreme tanners have a fixation to look orange; not unlike an Oompa-Loompa!

She met women whose addiction had lead to early aging and malignant melanomas that had to be removed by surgery – which she pluckily watched. This took the journey down to of Westminster where she put her full support behind a bill to ban sun beds for under-18s. She met people along the way who were regularly using sun beds from a very young age. Nicola met Welshman Tom whose addiction was so strong he felt the need to inject himself with an unproven and under-certified tanning drug in order to seek the perfect colour. He was so hooked she challenged him to kick the habit for a month. Admittedly he was entertaining, and looked far better after taking time off the sun beds, but his best line was that it “took some ginger woman from Girls Aloud to make me go cold turkey.”

Nicola displayed a real passion for her quest and delivered the show in an honest and down to earth (Liverpudlian way. I thought she did a great job addressing a difficult subject and one that can have such severe consequences. The message, like everything else, is tan in moderation.

What do APA Members think and where do we stand on legislation to control sun bed tanning?

Gareth

Olympic-sized loans

Lloyds Banking Group has announced plans to help UK businesses benefit from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The lender has pledged to make at least £1 billion in credit available to companies contracting with the Olympic Development Authority, the London 2012 Organising Committee or any official Games supplier over the next two years.

According to Lloyds, the total value of contracts connected to London 2012 is estimated to be £6 billion, including £1 billion of direct arrangements. A large number of small direct contracts remain available for firms across the UK, plus work in the supply chain, the bank says.

Sebastian Coe, chair of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, said the events are "not just about sporting talent and not just about London". He added: "Across the UK, there are thousands of incredible businesses that could stand to benefit from the huge economic boost that will come from the Games.

APA

A thirst for work

Less than a third of British employees think the company they work for is generous to staff, it has been revealed. According to research 32% think their organisation is too thrifty, while 43% believe staff incentives are poor. A third believe that small perks such as free tea and coffee help boost their morale, but 25 per cent have seen their companies cut back on this provision during the recession. Just 57 per cent of British workers are able to enjoy a free cup of tea or coffee at work it was found. One in ten respondents said cutbacks on refreshments had changed the atmosphere for the worse at work, while 19 per cent said it had left them wondering about the future.

The research for uSwitch.com reported that 38 per cent of workers expect at the very least for an employer to provide hot drinks for staff. A spokesman said "Perks like free tea and coffee do add up, but the cost is minimal when compared with the value that staff place on them. Cutting out the free cuppas may add to the bottom line, but there may be a far greater price to be paid in staff morale."

According to the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, job satisfaction levels have hit an all-time low during the winter months.

APA

Weather causes breakdown

It would be true to say that UK roads have gone to pot [holes]! After the freak weather conditions in January, the state of our tarmac has deteriorated to an all time low and the cost of repairing it is almost unprecedented. Current estimates suggest that it will cost over £100 million to patch-up the roads and maybe as much as £1 billion to achieve a total repair. And let’s face it the coffers aren’t that flush with cash at the moment.

The Insurers are even more perplexed with estimates for repairs to cars from ‘pothole encounters’ forecast to be worse than the repair to the roads! They already believe our infrastructure is returning to the Middle Ages.

1. Potholes are a major factor in causing axle & suspension failure and costs British motorists an estimated £2.8 billion every year.
2, Authorities currently pay out more than £50 million in compensation claims due to poor roads
3. Road maintenance in England and Wales is underfunded by £1 billion every year.
4. If all authorities were given the budgets they need to fix their roads, it would take English authorities 11 years to catch up with the current backlog, and Welsh authorities 16 years.

It seems we may have to suffer them for some months to come.

APA

Kill nonsense cold calls

I don’t often use the blog to sound off but I have been called twice today by people looking to sell me services I didn’t ask for (one a bank and the other a car breakdown service). Now I have no problem with sales calls; we all need to make them, but I do object to being asked to confirm my details.

When I refused to confirm my address for the bank I added “You should know; you called me!” I was told it was for data protection purposes. Need-less-to-say, I put the phone down. Does it annoy you or is it just me? Surely I should be checking that they are really who they say they are! Giving out personal data to anyone who phones and asks seems mighty risky to me!

Aimee Lewis FAPA

APA meets Business Minister

Gareth Osborne, Director General of APA, met the Minster for Business, Ian Lucas MP, this week to discuss areas of concern to APA members and their Bosses. Also present were senior representatives of the Better Regulation Executive who shared their thoughts on ways to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses; especially small businesses, and their plans for the future.

The Minister stressed a desire to cut red tape and use regulation as a last resort in line with the EU Directive calling for a 25% reduction in bureaucratic process by 2012. Gareth asked for more attention to be paid to plain English explanations and less legalistic processes. The Minister agreed and cited his own personal preference for simple ‘How to’ Guides.

The Minister’s portfolio embraces responsibility for business sectors (aerospace; marine and defence, automotive; chemicals; construction; manufacturing, materials and engineering; retail; services), the Better Regulation Executive, better regulation within BIS, Olympic legacy, sustainable development and regulation including waste electrical and electronic equipment issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, third sector strategy and issues, corporate governance, Companies Act, Companies House, Insolvency Service (including companies investigations), export control. He was appointed Minister for Business and Regulatory Reform in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on 5 June 2009.

The Better Regulation Executive (BRE) was set up to play a lead role in driving through a programme of activities to simplify regulation. It works with Government departments and regulators to; Improve the design of new regulations and how they are communicated; Simplify and modernise existing regulations; and change attitudes and approaches to regulation to become more risk-based.

Any comments of the burden of red tape, please contact: gareth.osborne@paprofessional.com
To find details of the Better Regulation Executive: http://www.betterregulation.gov.uk/

APA

More jobs on offer

The labour market is slowly starting to recover, with the biggest increase in job vacancies in two-and-a-half years and a rise in permanent placements last month, a survey of recruitment agencies showed today. The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), which runs the monthly survey along with accountants KPMG, said that although the rate of growth in permanent placements slowed in January from December's two-year peak, the rebound remained on track. It added that the recovery was still tentative and could be damaged by higher employment taxes or more regulation.

The Office for National Statistics reported that the unemployment rate eased to 7.8 percent in the three months to November compared to 7.9 percent in the three months to October on the internationally comparable ILO measure. Unemployment has risen less in Britain than in many other countries which exited recession earlier - something economists attribute in part to greater wage flexibility than in previous downturns.

APA

Gone Phishing

Fraudsters are using increasingly more sophisticated methods to carry out phishing scams, it has been reported.

Research by Network Box (network-box.co.uk) has revealed that over half of all malware (software developed for the purpose of causing harm to a computer system) sent by email is an attempted phishing expedition (the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames).

The report suggested that phishing attacks soared before Christmas to 57 per cent of malware, as criminals attempted to exploit the number of people shopping online. “However, the numbers have stayed at a similarly high level through January”, Network Box said. It claimed that fraudster’s methods are becoming more and more convincing. In the early days of phishing, attacks were littered with poor spelling and grammar and not-so-realistic web sites but as users have become more savvy then fraudsters have had to up their game.

APA encourages everyone to be extremely cautious about giving out their personal details or responding to suspicious emails.

APA