The 'Gaffer'

“Unquestionably the biggest and most costly gaff of his career and one that will haunt him for years to come” was how Gareth Osborne described the enormous faux pas made by the Gordon Brown yesterday.

This is an unfortunate but none-the-less perfect lesson for PAs when working in a PR capacity or who are engaging with the press and broadcast media. One of the first lessons you must learn is never to make off the cuff, ill-considered or private sidebars when with or around the media. There is no such thing as privacy (or personal comments) and any misquote or wrong interpretation of a question will be forgiven. If you say something that can be interpreted badly, it will be used. And don’t always rely on saying ‘Is this off the record?’ That’s why people who do it for a living are so good and people who don’t appear fazed – they usually are.

And always remember ‘Mike is never your friend’. It you are wearing one, say nothing that isn’t directly related to the matter in hand. Trust me, I’ve been caught out more than once. You would have hoped that someone of Gordon Brown’s experience and media training would have learned this simple fact; he must be terribly stressed!

Gareth, APA

Hung parliament should not worry Business

Businesses should not be worried by the prospect of a hung parliament following the May 6th general election. According to new research conducted by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), the concern felt by the majority of businesses has been exacerbated by over-zealous reports in the popular press.

The research suggested that two thirds of businesses are either "concerned" or "very concerned" about the prospect of a hung parliament following the next general election.

Commenting on the BCC's research, Gareth Osborne of APA, said that power sharing is a far from ideal outcome; history shows little is achieved and it usually results in an immediate or early second election process, but the result will not result in a huge catastrophe for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).The markets have so far continued to perform well since the Lib Dems gained momentum in the opinion polls; and it became a three-horse race, and the pound continues to perform well.

With just a week to go, APA would like to see clearer statements from all three main parties on there measures to recreate business stability, regenerate employment and reduce further the burden of bureaucracy. It also recognises that with such a dramatic national debt it is unlikely that any government can do anything radical that requires funding and that swathing cuts in public sector costs (including staffing) are more likely and essential.

APA

GDP slows during Q1/2010

UK gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 0.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2010, according to preliminary figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Should the figure be confirmed, it would represent a slight downturn in activity since the final three months of 2009, when GDP rose by 0.4 per cent.

Commenting on the announcement, David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said the figures were "weaker than expected, but not entirely surprising.
Lower growth in the first quarter of this year compared with the last quarter of 2009 was anticipated by the BCC's Quarterly Economic Survey, and is consistent with our forecast published in March," he stated. "Although still weak, GDP has now recovered for two quarters in a row, so it is important for policy-makers to focus on ensuring that the recovery continues and a double-dip recession is avoided."

Mr Kern said that as soon as the election is out of the way, it is "critical" for a new government to put in place a credible deficit-reduction plan, allowing business to lead a sustainable recovery. Without a credible plan, there are serious risks that the fragile economic upturn will fizzle out, he claimed.

APA

Monkey Business

A man walks into a shop, the sign says “One Stop Shop for Business”, around the walls he sees a bank of cages. Another customer walks in and says to the shopkeeper, "I'll have a C monkey, please".

The shopkeeper nods, goes over to a cage at the side of the shop and takes out a monkey. He fits a collar and leash and hands it to the customer, saying "That'll be £5,000". The customer pays and walks out with his monkey.

Startled, the man goes over to the shopkeeper and says, "That was a very expensive monkey, most of them are only a few hundred pounds. Why did it cost so much?"
"Oh", says the shopkeeper, "that monkey can program in C very fast, tight code, no bugs, well worth the money."

The man starts to look at the monkeys in the cage. He says to the shop keeper, "That one's even more expensive, £10,000! What does it do?" "Oh", says the shopkeeper, "that one's a C++ monkey; it can manage object-oriented programming, Visual C++, even some Java, all the really useful stuff."

The man looks around a little longer and sees a third monkey in a cage on its own. The price tag round its neck says £50,000. He gasps to the shop keeper, "That one costs more than all the others put together! What on earth does it do?"

"Well," says the shopkeeper, "I’ve never actually seen it do anything but it says it's a Consultant."

Sarah Tiddy FAPA
PS. We had one of these recently to advise us on HR matters!

Potholes in the road to recovery

The economic recovery is still too fragile for small businesses to consider taking on new staff, it has been claimed. According to John Walker, national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the latest unemployment figures clearly demonstrate the risks faced by small enterprises.

The Office for National Statistics reported this week that an additional 43,000 people were out of work in the UK between December and February, compared to the previous quarter. At eight per cent of the population - equivalent to 2.45 million people - the jobless rate has reached its highest level in 14 years.

Mr Walker claimed that while small businesses are, on the whole, increasingly confident for the future, a degree of caution is perfectly understandable. "Small businesses are at the heart of the recovery but still need support if they are to get us firmly on that road to recovery, and if they are to begin taking on staff again," he added.

APA, along with the FSB, is calling for a renewed economic stimulus to help small businesses continue to create jobs, get access to crucial finance, innovate and start up new businesses, to get the economy squarely on the road to recovery.

APA

Pension charges set to rise

PricewaterhouseCoopers has become the latest firm to raise fears over proposed pension accounting changes.

The financial services firm said proposals by the International Accounting Standards Board to change IAS19 - expected this month - could force most firms to report higher pensions costs.
It estimated the combined pension costs for UK companies would rise by £10bn - with a corresponding decrease in reported profits.

Despite this, PwC said it was "supportive" of the improved transparency on pensions disclosure that the changes would bring. PwC's comments come just weeks after both Hewitt and Mercer issued warnings over the changes.

APA

Storm clouds follow Ash clouds

Storm clouds gather for public sector employees as job satisfaction plummets, says latest quarterly CIPD Employee Outlook survey

Official GDP figures published today confirm the UK has continued its climb out of recession, however the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's (CIPD) quarterly Employee Outlook survey suggests that things will get worse for public sector workers before they get better. The findings follow hot on the heels of new CIPD predictions this week that 500,000 public sector jobs will be lost over the next five years, whoever wins the elections.

Nearly one in five (18%) of public sector workers now think it likely they could lose their job as result of the economic climate, compared with just 7% in April 2009. Almost four in ten (39%) public sector employees say their organisation is planning to make redundancies, up from 14% a year ago. And nearly two thirds (63%) of public sector workers think it would be difficult to get a new job in contrast to 56% a year ago.

Against this backdrop it is not surprising that public sector workers feel under increasing pressure, with one in four (23%) reporting they feel under excessive pressure at work every day compared to just 13% in spring 2009. And compared with a year ago, they are also less likely to say they are satisfied with their work-life balance (52% compared to 57% last year).

APA

Research into mobiles and associated health risks

The biggest study to date into the effects of mobile-phone usage on long-term health was launched on Thursday, aiming to track at least a quarter of a million of people in five European countries for up to 30 years.

The Cohort Study on Mobile Communications (COSMOS) differs from previous attempts to examine links between cellphone use and diseases such as cancer and neurological disorders in that it will follow users' behaviour in real time. Most other large-scale studies have centred on people already suffering from cancer or other diseases and simply asked their previous mobile-phone use. They have also been shorter, since cellphones have only been widely used for about a decade.

About 5 billion mobile phones are in use worldwide. To date, groups such as the World Health Organization, the American Cancer Society and the National Institutes of Health have found no evidence that cellphone use harms health.

APA

Coach Potato

Passengers fed up with long and boring train journeys will be pleased to learn that a rail company has launched the UK's first onboard TV screens.

First Great Western is introducing the on-demand service via seat-back screens on one coach of each of their high-speed trains. They are similar in size to those found on many airlines. The TV screens will be fitted into all First Great Western's high-speed trains by November. So far they have equipped 16 trains, which travel from London Paddington to southern England, the West Country and Wales.

Customers who wish to watch the latest TV shows, sports and documentaries will have to pay £3.95 or get one-hours access for £1.50. They will also need to buy a £2.50 set of headphones unless they have their own. The Volo TV touch screen allows you to choose and control what you watch, so you can pause the action if you need to pop to the toilet. Viewers can also use the TV to read the latest news headlines, follow their journey on a moving map and check out real-time journey information.

Greater internet access may be more useful for business travellers but an episode of 'The Office' could be equally enlightening.

Shelley, APA

From an item in the Daily Mail 21/04/10. Photograph copyright Volo.

Computer Health Warning!

The enforced closure of botnets (see below) is doing little to halt the rise of spam on the internet, it has been suggested. According to the latest figures from Google's worldwide analytics, spam levels held relatively steady during the first quarter of the year, despite the closure of the Mariposa and Mega-D super-botnets.

In fact, spam volumes in quarter one were six per cent higher than in the equivalent period of 2009.

Commenting on the finding, Colin Minto, Technology Director of APA, said: "The problem is that the fundamental technology for sending email is not secure, especially in terms of authentication; that is, being able to truly validate a messages origin. People continue to click and open spurious messages and spam is still getting through, allowing users' computers to become infected and new botnets to form and grow, he explained.

Earlier this month, Symantec issued a report showing that, as of March 2010, spam comprises 89.34 per cent of all email around the world.

APA
A ‘botnet’ is a group of infected PCs that are all controlled by an external "command and control centre" and their processing power used for unauthorised purposes.

Confusing Act

Smaller firms may find it difficult to understand the new Equality Act in its present form, according to the Association of Personal Assistants. The organisation is joining others in calling for greater clarity in the legislation, which has an accompanying 300-page guidance document.

Gareth Osborne, Director General of APA, said that in its present state, the guidance does not deliver the clarity necessary to achieve real change in business behaviour. "It fails to provide clear and accurate advice to business owners about the requirements of the Act," he stated. In seeking to provide best practice recommendations, the clarity of the advice becomes muddled and lost. APA believes that this confusion will lead to further costs as businesses either over-react to the legislation or are forced to bear the burden at subsequent tribunals for not engaging with the legislation."

Gareth cautioned that the document is also too long and will also prove prohibitive to small company bosses, many of whom have severe limits on their time and little patience when faced with indigestible legalese.

The Equality Act is due to come into force in October 2010, with its measures to be phased in over the next three years. PAs are recommended to watch out for abridged versions (coming soon) to ensure they remain current.

APA

When the dust settles

In the wake of the disruption caused by the cloud of volcanic dust the backlog of stranded travellers will take some time to clear. Tmpact it has and will have on businesses will be enormous. APA set out to find the best advice on how to handle staff absence. The following statement has been issued by the Legal Protection Scheme of the Federation of Small Business (FSB). They said:

“Small businesses are under no obligation to pay employees who miss work due to being stranded by the air travel ban. Wages are paid for work done, meaning firms reserve the right to withhold payment even though the circumstances are beyond individuals' control.

Employers could give staff the option of taking unpaid leave, taking further annual leave or making up the time at a later date. The employer cannot force the employee to take further annual leave retrospectively though - this would require their consent to do so. The starting point is that it's simply unpaid leave."

However, the FSB's advisers urged firms not to discipline employees who are unable to return to the UK from abroad, as this is clearly the fault of a volcanic explosion not a conscious decision on their part. Finally, the LPS said it is at the discretion of the employer whether or not they are prepared to rearrange agreed annual leave with workers due to go off on holiday.

APA encourages all employers to be tolerant and accept the inevitability that ‘Acts of God’ happen and by their nature we could all be subject to them form time to time.

Gareth, APA

Cash is no longer King!

A new report from the Payments Council shows a decline in the use of cash, as it is replaced with payments via cards.

The Way We Pay 2010 insight shows that six in ten transactions still involve cash, but almost 80 per cent of these are less than £10. Most substantial payments are now made using a credit card. And according to the study, cash transactions are expected to represent less than half the total in five years time - the first time this will ever have happened.

Commenting on the findings, APA Technology Director, Colin Minto, suggested that cash use is, "Declining as the generation that was used to cash gets older and the new technology generation takes over. Electronic payment, principally driven by the growth in ecommerce, has become the method of choice for Internet users and reservations about a lack of security have diminished as volumes increase,” he said.

"We still have to be aware that a small percentage of the population have neither credit cards nor bank accounts but the use of cash does seem to be rapidly disappearing. Last year, it was announced that the cheque will be phased out as a payment method by 2018.”

APA

PAs of Distinction

Pictured are Emma Kernan-Staines FAPA of the FA Group (left) and Laura Richardson FAPA of ELEXON Ltd (right) each is shown receivng their Diploma in Personal Assistance.

Both passed 'with distinction' - a great achievement.

Also pictured is APA Director Carly Beales FAPA (centre) of the Bank of America, herself a Diploma holder.

All APA Members will join me in congratulating them on their success.

Gareth, APA

Due date

Late payments are still a major concern for small and medium-sized enterprises struggling to deal with the fallout of the recent recession in the UK, it has been claimed. According to new research by BACS Payment Schemes, which is behind direct debit and BACS Direct Credit, UK SMEs have to wait on average 41 days longer than their originally agreed payment date.

This amounts to a 9.5-day increase on the 31.5 days small companies were waiting for their payments in 2009. Moreover, more than a third of SMEs said that large companies were the worst culprits when it came to late payments, while 17 per cent said that sole traders withheld cash for the longest.

Commenting on the research Gareth Osborne, of APA, said: "Late payment is a huge problem for small businesses and it’s alarming to hear that small firms are waiting even longer to be paid. Late payment is one of the major factors affecting the survivability of UK SMEs even eclipsing even taxation and regulation."

APA will be writing to the new Small Firms Minister on appointment following the election.

APA

APA extends its condolences to all PAs of Polish origin in Membership, whether they are Members in Poland or Polish PAs working in the UK, on the tragic loss of President Lech Aleksander Kaczyński, his wife Maria and all those killed in the plane crash in Smolensk yesterday.

APA

Flex in the workplace

Family-friendly working practices should be at the heart of every company and organisation in the UK, one minister has claimed. Speaking as the government announced new plans to increase the flexible working options available to UK professionals, children and families minister Dawn Primarolo said this remains "the best route out of poverty for families". She said the Government wished to do all it can to help parents find employment and stay employed.

However, Ms Primarolo claimed it is crucial that private sector employees also play their part by embracing new working models, including non-standard hours. "My own department is committed to flexible working and has really seen the benefits of supporting those with caring responsibilities in their careers," she stated. "We know that fathers can find it particularly difficult to juggle the responsibilities of work and family."

Ms Primarolo said the government was aiming to make it easier for mums and dads "to strike the right balance" between work and family life.

APA DG, Gareth Osborne, confirmed that APA totally supports the principle of flexible working but stressed that the flexibility afforded to every worker has to be by negotiation and not by right. He said, “Businesses have to remain profitable to survive and flexibility does potentially place a burden on productivity; especially in smaller businesses. I will be writing to the Minister to ensure she engages with the small business groups to structure any new initiatives her department may be planning.”

Member’s thoughts are welcomed.

Gareth, APA.

SME owners invest

While the mighty continue to take their bonuses, small business owners in the UK have invested more than £16 billion of their own money into their companies over the last year to survive the recession, it has been reported. Research conducted by specialist insurer Hiscox indicates that 20 per cent of entrepreneurs used their own personal finance to support their business interests, while 34 per cent cut their salary to increase cashflow.

The average amount of money poured into a small business last year was £17,030, the company reported. Some 33 per cent of entrepreneurs increased their working hours by, on average, 12.5 hours a week, while ten per cent worked more than 50 hours as they sought to keep their businesses afloat.

Alan Thomas, small business expert at Hiscox, claimed that small and medium-sized business bosses have been "the unsung heroes of the recession, They have made enormous sacrifices and taken significant personal and financial risks to pull their businesses through the last two years. Their positive outlook for the year ahead is testament to the resilience of UK entrepreneurs and with 25 per cent planning to expand in 2010, they are doing their bit to help lead the UK's recovery."

Gareth, APA.