Lorry accident rate high

An alarming statistic, broadcast by the BBC today, suggests that although lorries account for less than 10% of all road traffic, they are involved in more than 30% of accidents.

APA will be writing to the Transport Minister and expressing serious concern about the claim, asking for further clarification and recommending a detailed review of current legislation targeted at road haulage operators and suggesting some modification.

Gareth Osborne, Director General of APA said, “We hear news daily of trucks causing major accidents and closing motorways for hours and hours. The impact on the national (and local) business economy is enormous and paralyses; even gridlocks, the road network. Government should be looking at ways to ensure higher driving standards amongst lorry drivers and placing limits on how they operate larger vehicles. One recommendation will be to consider banning lorries overtaking on inclines; this practice is in common use on some European roads.”

APA

Professional women must save for retirement

More than a third of female professionals will retire below the poverty line, a new study has indicated. Prudential's Class of 2010 retirement survey indicates that 35 per cent of women planning to retire this year will receive an income of under £14,000. This compares to 29 per cent of men who will be in a similar financial predicament.

According to Prudential, the gender gap becomes even starker over the age of 65, where 42 per cent of women will have incomes below the poverty line compared with 33 per cent of men.

Vince Smith-Hughes, the company's head of business development for pensions, said the findings highlighted the need for businesswomen to take retirement planning into their own hands. "Women are more likely to take a career break when they start a family and possibly the last thing on your mind when you're taking care of children and the home is how you're going to fund your retirement years," he stated. "Evidently there is a vast difference between men's and women’s anticipated retirement income and we believe government and the retirement savings industry can do more to encourage men and women to save more into pensions."

The government announced this week that the default retirement age of 65 is to be scrapped.

APA

Qualifications boom

Shown Back Row (L-R) are: Sue Pope, Claire Brewer, Tania Saunders, Tanya Willington, Debbie Baxter. Front Row: Jo Oldham, Payal Patel and Susan Ahmed.

Another group of PAs demonstrated their commitment to continuing professional development yesterday by undertaking training on the one-day APA ‘PA Professional’ workshop. This stand alone course can be taken in isolation or as Module 2 to the much prized Diploma in Personal Assistance (DipPA). The course was lively, challenging and delegates contributed enthusiastically to discussions and debates.

Gareth Osborne, who delivered the course, said, "This was another great group of PAs, keen to learn and open to new ways of managing (and improving) their boss's working life and I am confident they will return to their businesses with a renewed vigor and eager to implement ideas."

For more details about this or other training programmes please visit the APA website or contact training@paprofessional.com or call 0800 107 1030.

APA

More PA stars undertake APA training

Wednesday has seen another 'PA Apprentice' course being dellivered in London and has attracted existing and aspiring PAs. Pictured right are attendees; Gemma, from the Isle of Man, Sam, Michelle and Claire.

Pictured left is Claire Howrad DipPA who visited the course to wish delegates well, share her own experiences and receive her Diploma Certificate from APA Director General, Gareth Osborne.

APA

The Budget

If you want to see the full Budget document; as issued by the Treasury, go to:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_188581.pdf

APA

Budget - first response (Budget +45 mins)

In a Budget that the Chancellor, George Osborne, described as 'unavoidable' he announced that VAT will rise to 20% from 4 January 2011. The rise, alongside a raft of spending cuts, will help see the country's deficit fall to 1.1% of gross domestic product by 2014-15 from its current level of 11%.

However, Mr Osborne admitted that the measures will have an impact on growth. The economy will grow just 1.2pc this year, 2.3pc next year and 2.8pc in 2012.

Corporation tax will be cut from 28% to 27% next year, and by 1% annually for the following three years. The rate for small companies will also be cut to 20%.

The threshold at which employers start to pay National Insurance will rise by £21 a week above indexation from April, the chancellor said.

“Reform of the corporate tax regime will help rebalance the economy away from household debt and government consumption", Mr Osborne said.

In other key measures the Chancellor announced a major adjustment of the welfare package including an abolition of tax cedits for families earning more than £40K pa. He outlined increases to personal income tax allowances - up £1000 to £7475 - and an increase in Capital Gains Tax for higher earners to 28%. Perhaps most popularly Mr Osborne announced the introduction of a Bank Levy which he forecast would generate £2 billion pa from Jan 2011 for the Treasury.

A more detailed analysis will be available to APA Members in the Knowledge Zone from tonight.

Gareth Osborne, APA. (no relation)

One million young people unemployed

The latest unemployment figures published by the Office for National Statistics, has shown the number of people out of work has risen by 23,000 to 2.47 million in the three months up to April.

Commenting on these figures, Gareth Osborne of APA said, “It is alarming to see the number of people out of work edging towards 2.5 million again. With increasing pressure being placed on the public sector in this week’s emergency budget, this figure could rise rapidly and may soon exceed 3 million. However there is some encouragement as we are seeing signs of increasing confidence and demand for staff in the private sector.

“It’s particularly worrying to see that there are currently 926,000 16-24 year olds that aren’t in work or some form of training. APA will be lobbying Government over coming weeks to support drives for better and more relevant youth training schemes; with an emphasis on PA skills to support small business owners.

Gareth, APA

Hackers Paradise

Business owners and employees have been reminded of the dangers of making personal data freely available online. One IT security expert claims that social networking users risk becoming the victims of identity fraud by innocently giving away too much information.

A ‘reformed hacker’ (presumably a member of Hackers Anonymous), said the details many people make freely available on the internet are often enough to allow fraudsters access to their bank accounts. The trouble is, if you put out on the internet in general things like your date of birth, where you were born, what your mother's maiden name is, where you went to school – those are the same bits of information that banks want to know for security questions," he explained. “It is very easy to guess somebody's password after finding information about them by looking online, and "this is one of the things that fraudsters do."

Research released this week by CPP, a provider of life assistance products and services, revealed that people in the UK receive an estimated 420,000 scam emails an hour - the equivalent of one every seven seconds. Fortunately most are blocked by strong Firewalls or good security software.

With this in mind, APA urges all web users to take greater care with their bank details when using the internet. "The golden rule is never ever type in usernames, passwords or credit card details after clicking on a link within an email message," said APA Technology Director Colin Minto.

APA

Banks still getting it wrong

The main reason small business owners are dissatisfied with the banks is because of their reluctance to offer credit, it has been suggested. A recent study by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) indicated that the removal of decision-making powers from local branches, and the provision of multiple account managers, has damaged the relationship between high street banks and small companies.

Gareth Osborne of APA believes the main problem is the banks' continued lack of financial support for the small business sector. "Instead of providing much-needed funding for businesses, many banks are now trying to repair their balance sheets, and small business owners feel that they are being made to pay for the banks' previous poor investments.With the Bank of England freezing its base rate at 0.5 per cent for the 15th successive month in June, many small business owners are finding this "difficult to swallow", he stated.

In the FSB study, a quarter of all respondents said they were dissatisfied with the level of service currently provided by their high street bank.

APA

Post recession stress syndrome

Statistics that show a quarter of UK employees go the full working day without a break should give employers "a wake-up call" about pressure in the post-recession workplace, it has been claimed. Carly Beales of APA said, “Employers should be looking out for signs that employees are not coping.

She was commenting on a report published by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy which indicates that 36 per cent of staff regularly skip their lunch break due to the size of their workload. "It's not just working through your lunch break; it's also whether people are working excessive hours, whether they are staying on too long, whether they are working at home over the weekend or sending emails in the middle of the night," she said.

She added that knock-on effects from the economic downturn - such as lower company headcounts - have accentuated workplace pressures. "The ongoing impact of the recession is really starting to take its toll and issues around workloads; such as whether or not people are taking appropriate breaks, are something employers should be watching very carefully."

APA is encouraging Members to watch colleagues carefully for signs of stress, depression or excessive outbursts of frustration and report these incidents confidentially to the Boss (or HR).

APA

Banks reach all time low

Over a quarter of small businesses have been dissatisfied with the support offered by their high street bank in the last 12 months, it has been reported. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) latest monthly survey reveals that 1.2 million companies have been unimpressed by the services offered by their bank during this period.

According to the survey, the highest dissatisfaction rates were witnessed among businesses which have had multiple business account managers over the year. Just 13 per cent of those whose account manager remained the same had cause for complaint, rising to 52 per cent for those with three different managers, 53 per cent for four and 70 per cent for five.

And despite 26 per cent of firms saying the working relationship they have with their bank manager influences their choice of provider, as many as 46 per cent of respondents' managers were not based locally.

Gareth Osborne of APA said, "It is imperative that the banks start to engage with their customers again. The average firm surveyed had held their account at the same bank for 14.7 years. When they first started banking there, the manager would have known their name and the business and would have been the one to make a decision about the account, not a centrally-based computer as happens now. Bankers have become ‘slick and arrogant’ and these are not qualities we appreciate in our professional service providers."

Gareth, APA

Congratulations to all the Winners

APA PAs have swept the board at the Hays and The Times 'PA of the Year' Awards - taking first, second and third places - and two are APA Diploma holders.

Congratulations go to Laura Richardson (centre), the 'PA of the Year' and her two runners up, Emma Jones (left) and Emma Kernan-Staines (right).

APA

Staff Flow Forecasting - essential for businesses in the new economy

CIPD urges HR to raise the bar through effective workforce planning with launch of a new guide

Workforce planning – defined as ensuring the people resources are in place to deliver short and long-term organisation objectives - should be a core process of HR in order to help build sustainable organisation performance. This is the view of a new Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) guide, Workforce Planning: Right People, Right Time, Right Skills, which demonstrates how organisations can deliver the business plan through its people.

CIPD research shows that too many organisations are neglecting to plan for the future. This year's Resourcing and Talent Planning survey shows most organisations carry out workforce planning for the next 1-2 years (41%), with a fifth planning less than one year in advance (20%). Responding to these concerns, the guide urges organisations to look beyond short-term budgetary planning to the longer term needs of the organisation for sustained performance.

APA Director General Gareth Osborne said, “I am delighted to see CIPD taking this stance and promoting staffing as one of the key factors of business planning. In 1988, at a then Training Agency conference, I coined the phrase ‘Staff Flow Forecasting’ in an attempt to get businesses to recognise the importance of their future staffing needs. Strategic planners have focused on cash flow alone for far too long and without the recognition that staffing; which accounts for at least 50% of the operational overhead of most businesses, must be planned and managed just as meticulously. It’s all very well to plan for long term growth but if you can’t get the correctly skilled staff; at a price the business can afford, to gain, process and account for the orders then strategic plans will never be achieved.”

“PAs should work with their HR departments to access this report and refer it to their Bosses.”

APA

The power of an NXD

Businesses owners can benefit enormously by enlisting the services of a non-executive director (NXD), it has been claimed.

Writing for the Telegraph, James Hurley noted that employing such an individual - an outsider who does not take an active role in the day-to-day running of the business - can be "a fast-track to commercial wisdom, astute introductions and constructive criticism of your strategy". A staple at board level in larger companies, he believes smaller businesses can also benefit from external expertise from an industry expert. Mr Hurley suggested that NXDs can prove to be an essential sounding board" for entrepreneurs, who often have only themselves to contribute to key business decisions.

"Many entrepreneurs are specialists filling the shoes of a generalist in order to manage a company's growth, so the majority of small businesses will be best served by an adviser with general knowledge to add," he suggested.

Continuing, Mr Hurley said the right adviser can add credibility ahead of a major deal or prospective investment round. He noted that NXD’s pay packet should reflect the fact they are working largely in a consultancy role, devoting perhaps a couple of days per month to the company.

Gareth Osborne of APA, himself a long standing NXD to a number of large and small businesses said, “I would recommend the appointment of at least one NXD to every business board. They are great value for money and have no ‘corporate axe’ to grind. Their advice is impartial and usually not vested in internal politics.”

APA