Posted by Hari on Thursday, October 15, 2015 with No comments | Labels: Roundup

Rise in UK jobs that fail
to pay a living wage, now totalling 6m
The Office for National Statistics says there were 6m jobs
paying less than the living wage across the UK in 2014, of which more than half
were part-time roles. The living wage, an independently set hourly rate, is
based on the cost of living and is currently set at £7.85 outside London and
£9.15 in the capital. It is higher than the minimum wage, which from October
starts at £3.87 for under-18s, rising to £6.70 for workers aged over 21, and
above the national living wage announced by George Osborne in the July budget. The
ONS said that in London, the proportion of jobs paying less than £9.15 an hour
hit 19% in 2014, after remaining stable at around 13% between 2008 and 2010,
while in the rest of the UK the proportion below the £7.85-an-hour threshold
rose from 21% in April 2012 to 23% in April 2014. Northern Ireland was the
country with the most low-paid roles, with 29% of jobs paying below the living
wage. In contrast, London, the south-east and Scotland had the fewest low-paid
jobs, each with 19%. In retail, the ONS found that 1.5m jobs around the UK paid
less than the living wage. Alison Garnham, chief executive of Child Poverty
Action Group, said low paid workers were already struggling to get their
families out of poverty, and changes to tax credits announced by the government
would make matters worse. GUARDIAN
NHS crisis deepens as
hospitals rack up £1bn debts in 3 months
The figures, which cover the period April 1 2015 to June 30
2015, show hospitals running up a combined deficit of £930m, with more than
three in every four hospitals unable to balance their books. The main reason
cited by hospitals for overspending was higher than expected pay costs due to
an over-reliance on expensive agency staff to raise nurse numbers. The Healthcare
Financial Management Association (HFMA), which represents finance directors,
said it had been “182 days since the government vowed to inject £8bn of
much-needed extra funding into the NHS and we still await confirmation as to
where and when this investment will be made”. The British Medical Association
described the deficits as “staggering” and said the NHS was facing “a funding
crisis the likes of which we have never seen”. BMA representative Dr Ian Wilson
said the extra funding promised by the government was “barely enough for the
NHS to stand still. The result is a health service that is buckling at the
seams, relying on emergency bailouts and with no real solution to the £22bn
funding gap facing it”. “With winter just around the corner, there is a real
risk to the quality of patient care as pressure on services and staff will only
intensify,” added Dr Wilson. The data, covering all hospitals — including
foundation trusts, which are generally regarded as the service’s higher
performers — will test George Osborne’s determination to avoid a further
bailout for the service. FINANCIAL TIMES
Half of world's
wealth now in hands of 1% of population
The middle classes have been squeezed at the expense of the
very rich, according to research by Credit Suisse, which also finds that for
the first time, there are more individuals in the middle classes in China –
109m – than the 92m in the US. Tidjane Thiam, the chief executive of Credit
Suisse, said: “Middle class wealth has grown at a slower pace than wealth at
the top end. This has reversed the pre-crisis trend which saw the share of
middle-class wealth remaining fairly stable over time.” The report shows that a
person needs only $3,210 (£2,100) to be in the wealthiest 50% of world
citizens. About $68,800 secures a place in the top 10%, while the top 1% have
more than $759,900. The report defines wealth as the value of assets including
property and stock market investments, but excludes debt. About 3.4 bn people –
just over 70% of the global adult population – have wealth of less than
$10,000. A further 1bn – a fifth of the world’s population – are in the
$10,000-$100,000 range. Each of the remaining 383m adults – 8% of the
population – has wealth of more than $100,000. This number includes about 34m
US dollar millionaires. About 123,800 individuals of these have more than $50m,
and nearly 45,000 have more than $100m. The UK has the third-highest number of
these “ultra-high net worth” individuals. A year ago, the the UK had been
singled out as the only country in the G7 where inequality had risen this
century. In this year’s report, the authors say: “[In the UK] wealth inequality has risen since
2000, as the gap in wealth per adult between the lower segment and rest of the
population has increased.” GUARDIAN
Water companies
pocket £800m windfall, NAO finds
The National Audit Office (NAO) estimated that between 2010
and 2015, water companies gained £410m from lower corporation tax rates and a
further £840m from lower than expected interest payments. Over the same period
the companies absorbed costs and provided water bill discounts worth up to
£435m, leaving them with a net gain of £800m. However, customers' bills had not
fallen because Ofwat had not properly "balanced the risks" between
water companies and consumers, blaming poor regulation by Ofwat. Ofwat rejected
criticism of its price control regime. Water prices will fall by 5% in real
terms over the next five years, Ofwat said earlier this year. Bills have risen
by 40% in real terms since privatisation in 1989, with the biggest rises coming
between 1990 and 1995. Water bills accounted for about 2.3% of average
household spending in 2013 and more than 5% for the poorest households. BBC NEWS
Facebook paid £4,327
corporation tax despite £35m staff bonuses
Facebook made an accounting loss of £28.5m in Britain in
2014, after paying out more than £35m to its 362 staff in a share bonus scheme,
according to the unit’s latest published accounts. Operating at a loss meant
that Facebook was able to pay less than £5,000 in corporation tax to HM Revenue
for the year. The level of tax contribution by Facebook, which claimed in 2013
that at least a third of UK adults visited its site every day, will add to the
debate about how to ensure that multinationals make fair tax payments in each
country in which they operate. Last year, Facebook made a profit on its
worldwide operations of $2.9bn (£1.9bn), on revenue of $12.5bn. UK revenues
were £105m last year. John Christensen, the director of campaign group the Tax
Justice Network, said: “it’s very likely they’re using all the usual techniques
to shift profits around.” George Osborne, the chancellor, has pledged to crack
down on tax avoidance by global firms by swiftly legislating to enact a new set
of rules drafted by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD), which has become a hub for global tax reform in recent
years. The so-called BEPS rules are aimed at cracking down on “base erosion and
profit-shifting”: the practices used by many global firms to minimise their tax
liabilities by recording profits in low-tax jurisdictions. “Taxes should be
paid where profits are made,” Osborne tweeted from the International Monetary
Fund’s annual meetings last week. Separately, the chancellor has introduced a
diverted profits tax, known as the “Google tax”, aimed at preventing hi-tech
international firms from minimising their tax liabilities in the UK. GUARDIAN
Sell more or lose
your job, Lloyds staff told: Bosses demand mortgages, insurance and credit
cards are pushed aggressively
Mis-selling of payment protection insurance has forced the
bank to set aside more than £13billion so far to compensate customers. The
scandal has been blamed on the ruthless sales culture at banks, with branch
staff given sales targets. The most prolific were given champagne and ‘grand in
the hand’ cash bonuses. Those who fell short were often pushed out of their
jobs. The situation had been so out of hand that in December 2013, Lloyds was
fined £28million by the Financial Conduct Authority. But despite scrapping
sales targets in January, Lloyds bosses have begun a crackdown on staff who do
not sell enough. In an unfortunate twist, Lloyds has named the operation
Project Labrador – after the dog breed known for being greedy and eating
anything. Under Project Labrador, those failing to sell enough mortgages or
fee-charging current accounts will have to take ‘knowledge tests’. If they
still fail to hit sales targets – called ‘needs met’ targets by Lloyds – for
six consecutive months, the bank will put them on a mandatory ‘performance
improvement plan’. Those failing to sell more could eventually lose their jobs.
Lloyds Trade Union said the pressure to sell contrasts with instructions
earlier this year, when executives had warned of the danger of ‘product push’.
It said the bank could be resurrecting its pressurised sales culture ‘by the
back door’. DAILY MAIL
Pensioners pull
further ahead as UK inflation turns negative
Prices fell by 0.1 per cent year on year — meaning those
benefits that are linked to inflation will not increase in April next year.
Many other benefits have already been frozen. Disability benefits such as care
or attendance allowances, which remain linked to inflation, will now not rise
at all unless the government chooses to use a different uprating mechanism. The
zero reading will also be bad news for those on public sector pensions, which
are linked to CPI and will now see no rise next April. Around three-quarters of
private sector schemes still use the higher RPI measure for calculating
increases, which stood at 0.8 per cent in September. State pensions are subject
to a “triple lock guarantee”, which means they rise by whichever is higher out
of earnings, prices or 2.5 per cent. Katie Schmuecker, policy and research
manager for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said there was now a “big
disparity” in the way pensioners and working age people were being treated in
the benefit system. Around 14 per cent of total government spending is aimed at
older people, the IFS calculates, compared with just 5 per cent on families
with children. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates the freeze will save
the government £4bn and the combination of the seven-year squeeze will mean a
total real cut of 8 per cent in the value of benefits between 2013 and 2020. This
is only the second time since 1960 that Britain’s headline consumer inflation
rate has turned negative, after April this year. The current exceptionally weak
inflation is driven primarily by falling energy prices and the relative
strength of sterling keeping down the cost of imports. The Office for Budgetary
Responsibility’s July forecasts assumed that inflation in the third quarter of
this year would be zero before picking up rapidly to hit 1 per cent in the
first quarter of next year. This is when the zero increases in those benefits will
begin to bite. FINANCIAL TIMES
Two UK bankers go on
trial in the US for alleged Libor tampering
The former traders have pleaded not guilty to rigging the
London inter-bank offered rate (Libor) while working for Dutch bank Rabobank. They
are accused of rigging rates connected to the dollar and the yen. Regulators in
the UK and US been investigating whether banks lied about rates in order to
profit. The investigations have led to 22 charges in the US and the UK and
£5.9bn paid in settlements by financial institutions. Lawyers for Anthony
Allen, 44, and Anthony Conti, 46, are expected to argue that UK regulators were
aware that banks reported Libor numbers that were in their self-interest. In
August, former UBS and Citigroup trader Tom Hayes was sentenced by a UK court
to 14 years in prison for his role in manipulating Libor. Libor is the rate at
which banks borrow money from one another and is the basis by with other
interest rates, including mortgage rates, are set. Banks have been accused of
misreporting rates in order to profit off trades made on Libor-dependent
products and services. BBC NEWS
Former Anglo Irish
bank chief David Drumm faces 33 criminal charges in US
The former chief executive of the Anglo Irish Bank, David
Drumm, which was at the centre of the country’s economic crash, is facing 33
criminal charges. 33 separate arrest warrants were issued by a judge in Dublin
in June 2013 for a range of alleged crimes including forgery and conspiracy to
defraud. Drumm, 48, who has been living in the US for the past six years, was
arrested by US Marshals on Saturday acting on an extradition warrant. He is
also accused of a number of offences relating to “unlawful financial
assistance” to a person or company in connection with the purchase of shares
and false accounting. The alleged offences carry sentences of between five
years and life imprisonment. Anglo Irish was Ireland’s third-biggest bank and
its collapse forced the government to nationalise it in 2009. Anglo, which was
one of the main lenders to property developers, was losing up to €1bn a day at
the time and was widely seen as the catalyst for Ireland’s banking collapse and
consequent bailout by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central
Bank and the EU in 2010. GUARDIAN
Pre-payment energy provider
Utilita fined £560,000 after wrongly blocking customers from switching supplier
Regulator Ofgem found the company had blocked 40,000
customers from moving to other suppliers. Refunds totalling £110,000 will be
paid to customers who lost out financially as a result. Utilita has apologised
and will pay the rest of the penalty to debt charity StepChange. Ofgem
described the actions of Utilita as "unacceptable" and said that the
ability for customers to switch was fundamental to a well-functioning energy
market. The regulator found customers were blocked in various ways between June
2010 and May 2015, such as automatically blocking those on fixed-term
contracts. The company also failed to write to customers to explain why their
switch had been blocked and what action they could take to resolve any issues. A
spokeswoman for Utilita said: "We would like to apologise unreservedly to
those customers whom we wrongly prevented from switching supplier... We will be
contacting those customers as quickly as we can to rectify this." BBC NEWS
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.