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Category: News

  • Sir Alan Duncan: “Have I Got News For You was absolutely terrifying”

    Sir Alan Duncan: “Have I Got News For You was absolutely terrifying”

    The former foreign office minister tells us about his degree and how it impacted his life in politics

    I studied PPE at Oxford, and when I’m asked what my degree taught me I always think of Harold Macmillan. Macmillan was a former prime minister, who was once Chancellor of Oxford, and he said to our College, which was St. John’s, that what freshers year taught you is when someone is talking rot. That’s always been my lodestar for what a good education means: if you know when someone’s talking rubbish, you know what’s good sense and what is not. 

    But political ambition predated my time at Oxford – I got the bug actually when I was about 12. Whether I regret that or not now is unclear, but everything I did at Oxford, and thereafter, was geared at getting into Parliament. 

    Politics and economics at Oxbridge is quite a well-trodden degree – but it’s often pointed out to me that the current prime minister wields his English language skills and classical education, and that that gives him an advantage. Well there might be truth in that, but there was an element of history in my papers too. My history tutor – who I knew for years afterwards – told me something I’ve never forgotten: “No economist ever makes a good banker. If you want to be a good banker, you have to read history.” I think there’s a lot in that, because it gives you a strategic perspective. It’s not about the numbers, and it’s not just about economic theory nationally. It’s about the ups and downs of life and societal and economic forces – and historians understand those far better than economists. 

    So in terms of my degree, I feel I learned enough – and I also learned a lot from the practical politics of the Oxford Union. This was at a time when the then Labour government under Jim Callaghan was falling to bits, and Thatcher was on the rise. So the 1979 elections slightly ate into my revision for finals – God knows how I got a degree at all. 

    It’s interesting to note that Theresa May studied geography, but I think in the end formal education isn’t what it’s all about. Whether you succeed in politics is more to do with your disposition and what you’ve done in life. The problem is I think a lot of people are going into Parliament now without any particular experience – and definitely too little international experience. 

    I was lucky to gain both in the oil industry. In that industry my best friend was Ian Taylor who died last year – and that friendship, together with the skill I’d acquired in the oil industry, did come in handy in particular when it came to getting rid of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya in 2011. Ian was buying and selling crude oil into Benghazi and we were able to go to the then prime minister David Cameron and explain that if he didn’t follow our strategy, he’d lose the war. Gaddafi was oil, and our approach helped bring him down. 

    If young politicians ask my advice about appearing on television, I say it’s the wrong question. The trouble is most politicians today don’t think about Parliament first and media second. They have it absolutely the wrong way round.

    What I think does matter about being a minister is time management. If you’re not careful, and you don’t administer your day, you can easily be organised by your private office: one of the golden rules of being a minister is always to make sure that you control the diary, rather than let the diary control you. So that means you need to look ahead, particularly for travel and set priorities – and make it clear to your private office that the priorities are as they are, that you will see some people but not others. You also need to explain that you want time to think – or time to call in one of the teams in the foreign office responsible for an area and get into an issue in more depth. So, planning, and not allowing yourself to be just told what to do as a process is the way to do it.

    The media doesn’t help any of this. Believe it or not, I’ve never been on The Andrew Marr Show, but I think Andrew has completely lost its way. The questions have become so staid and obvious, and it’s a programme whose time is up. It’s junk because Andrew keeps asking questions to which there can be no clear answer, doesn’t delve deeper and it’s all about trying to trip up the politician. It’s a dead programme. 

    I did use humour quite a lot in my career – on Have I Got News For You four times in fact. That was absolutely terrifying – they can’t prepare you for that at Oxford! 

    Photo credit: By Chris McAndrew, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61323695

  • Opinion: Boris Johnson made the wrong decision on the nightlife industry

    Opinion: Boris Johnson made the wrong decision on the nightlife industry

    By Garrett Withington

    To those who had been following the dripfeed of information given to the public prior to Boris Johnson’s announcement on the 14th June, the delay to the lifting of restrictions – or ‘freedom day’ as it has become known – came as no surprise. The threat of a new Delta or ‘Indian’ variant plainly alarmed a prime minister who earlier in the month had been lambasted by Dominic Cummings for failing to lock down soon enough. 

    The leaks at least meant that some businesses were able to prepare for the inevitable and learn to operate at reduced capacity with social distancing measures in place for just four more weeks. But spare a thought for a sector which has been seldom discussed: the nightlife industry.

    In fact, many clubs haven’t opened since March 2020. It’s also the sector which has been worst hit by lockdown restrictions and curfews. Even more worryingly, as of July 1st, the government is expecting cash-strapped venues who have had no income for nearly a year and a half to begin contributing into the very furlough scheme which has so far kept the industry standing.

    It’s all extraordinarily frustrating for those in the sector, since the rules can appear inconsistent. For instance, certain parts of the nightlife sector, such as pubs, can carry on with no extra bother – other than the knowledge that it’s much better to stand with a pint than it is to sit with one. But clubs and venues who were making preparations for reopening found their efforts stymied at a mere week’s notice. It’s unacceptable to be thrown back into this state of paralysis: the extra four weeks clearly means more to the sector than the government realises.

    We must remember that the term ‘nightlife industry’ encompasses not just pubs and bars, but also nightclubs and live music events. The latter two have been the most heavily impacted. It’s worth noting that an All-Party Parliamentary Group for the night-time economy produced a report back in January on the impact of Covid-19 on UK nightlife. The report highlights not only the fragility of the nightlife industry in 2021 but also the wider economic contribution which the sector provides to the UK economy. 

    The figures are worrying. The nightlife industry supports 1.3 million jobs and contributes around £66 billion to the UK economy, meaning its collapse would also affect all those tertiary businesses which support the sector – and are themselves reliant on it. Worse still, 81 per cent of workers in the industry have expressed a desire to leave and find more economically stable work. With over half of nightclub staff being made redundant during the pandemic, it will be interesting to see how many return once furlough contributions have stopped.

    That’s not all. Grants given by the government have little impact on the overheads, and this has led to most businesses feeling that the support given is insufficient. Business rates may have frozen but rents have not and if your rents stretch into the tens, or even hundreds, of thousands, then a maximum grant of £9,000 will feel like a kick in the teeth. When nine out of 10 nightclubs have traded for six months or less during the pandemic, and when turnover has been just 20 per cent of the usual there’s only one solution – to open doors again.  

    That’s certainly easier said than done in the current climate. But as Liverpool’s big rave proved, big events can be managed so as to not be on a ‘super-spreader’ level. We also need to bear in mind the cultural importance our nightlife plays in our society. You could argue that since the decline of the Church, it has been the humble pub which has done the most for community spirit. Meanwhile, clubs and music festivals are a steadfast aspect of the cultural identity of youth in Britain, particularly for university students. We hear a lot today about the increase in mental health difficulties, and this is often a product of the social isolation which our nightlife is built to remove.

    Boris Johnson’s justification for extending lockdowns is based on the reasonable fear that rising rates would outpace the vaccination rate. Even so, with the continued low number of deaths and hospitalisations, as well as a huge uptake in the vaccine by over 18s, it’s still arguable that the decision to delay was the wrong one. The suspicion is that this was informed by a need to push back PR-wise after his supposedly cavalier approach to lifting the first two lockdowns.   

    With over half of nightclubs admitting to being in rent arrears back in January, that position surely must have deteriorated: an additional month will be devastating. Further, the sheer cost of running the nightlife industry is not something that can be matched one for one by government spending. In order to preserve what’s left of the nightlife industry, the government should be flexible in bringing the opening date forward if we continue to see successes as a result of the continued vaccination programme. That’s because with every week the nightlife industry remains closed, more doors will shut for good. 

    Garrett Withington is a Finito staff writer

  • The Social Mobility Challenge

    The Social Mobility Challenge

    Stuart Thomson

    The Social Mobility Commission recently published research showing that nearly three out of four senior civil servants are from privileged backgrounds. Sadly, this problem is not unique to the civil service, but it does highlight the scale of the challenge involved. Without action, organisations will be ill equipped to deal with future challenges. 

    The drawbacks of only taking people from a similar background are well known. Fundamentally the danger of group think undermines creativity and leaves organisations less resilient to the challenges it undoubtedly faces.

    So a more open approach to bringing in new people and new thinking should be focused on addressing the social mobility. How do those from a whole range of backgrounds get access to the opportunities they need and deserve?

    Some professions have at least recognised the scale of the challenge. The Social Mobility Commission report, ‘Navigating The Labyrinth’, looks at how socio-economic background shapes career progression within the UK Civil Service.  

    There is tendency to focus on the implications for organisations of this type of closed shop approach. But there are significant implications for the country.  If swathes of the population know that they are, in effect, excluded from certain jobs or professions, that their opportunities are limited because of who they are, then society fractures, the belief in its institutions fade.  But think about the impact on the individuals as well.

    Importantly, there is an accompanying Action Plan to the report as well.  Some ideas about how the challenge can be addressed.

    Some organisations are focusing on diversity and inclusion strategies, but we all need to see examples and role models of a more inclusive approach to show that change is real, not just talk. 

    Benchmarking and reporting are useful at encouraging change, but they work best when pressure from outside is applied and the organisations are held to account.  That also means applying pressure on the reputation of an organisations. That can often focus minds.

    There also needs to be support provided for those leading the change internally but for those coming into the organisation as well. We all have a role to play in this.

    Not all of us will be involved in the recruitment process and for some organisations the applications are simply not coming in.

    The head of UCAS has complained about the “outdated stigma” about vocational qualifications and a “misplaced snobbery” about them as well.  But that can be on the part of employers as well as applicants.  It comes back to a lack of information but a lack of examples as well.

    Until 1970, less than one half of those becoming solicitors had a university degree (‘Legal Education in England’, Andrew Wilson Green). That isn’t necessarily to say that it was any less exclusive, or that being a solicitor had any less status in the community, but it does show that the ways of gaining entry have narrowed.

    Apprenticeships are on the rise which does open more opportunities.  We need more acceptance of there being a range of options to get into any profession which to be fair to the law there are.

    Yes, it is about employers, but we need to take a step back into higher education and, more importantly, secondary education.  So, it is about the career’s advice delivered, the outreach done, and how we improve the knowledge about roles and how to access them.

    Maybe we should all go out and talk to local schools more than we do. But this means more when people from a range of backgrounds can go out and talk. Some professions have groups of ambassadors tasked with such outreach.  There needs to be more of this, and their roles expanded.  It is not just hearing talk about how open an organisation or profession is but from those who optimise the approach to social mobility and from all levels, not just senior leaders many of whom the audience might not relate to.

    The Commission’s Action Plan mentions demystifying and that is critical.  Many people just do not know what the options or range of roles that may be open to them are. Again, it is self-reinforcing. Unless you have experience, normally through a family member or close friend, you just don’t know what the options are.  Or even if you may be interested, the challenge is in finding out more, particularly how to get entry, how to strengthen the CV, undertake training and how to best position yourself.  We need to move away from the idea that you need some sort of ‘insider knowledge’ or access. Only in that way we will deliver improved social mobility.

    The writer is the Head of Public Affairs at BDB Pitmans

  • Liam Williams: “Getting up on stage was a real rush – better than any drug”

    Liam Williams: “Getting up on stage was a real rush – better than any drug”

    The comedian, actor and writer describes the writing of his first novel

    Looking back at 2020 and early 2021, it’s been an interesting time. I vaguely got into Buddhism and mindfulness in the last year, having been in a retreat at the beginning of lockdown. Then I started drinking and having loud arguments on Zoom about politics for a while, but that passed. 

    The daily logistics of my life haven’t changed all that much – and yet there is a change. What I suppose I liked about solitude previously – and that’s true also of my recent lunges towards the appropriation of Eastern religion – is the idea that life might be going on without you elsewhere. You might be at home, but there’s a world going on beyond you, where things are actually happening. So although not much has changed for me, the psychological backdrop has changed. Solitude is no longer a choice, and that renders your hermitage a bit meaningless. 

    I haven’t really done stand-up for a few years. I managed to contain those tendencies, and now have a fairly conventional social life. There’s a lot of pressure that comes with social life – FOMO, as it’s popularly called. Lockdown has been good for making you realise what’s important.  

    In terms of what motivates me, I guess there is a driving need I haven’t made sense of. But driving needs are a bit like that – they’re slightly inexplicable. It started for me at university – a desire for attention. There was a comedy scene at Cambridge, and I saw people going on stage, and getting that connection with the audience. I liked spending my leisure time in drinking establishments and so I guess I wanted a professionalised version of that. 

    I was lucky too in that the first couple of times I went on stage, it went reasonably well – beginner’s luck. It was a real rush – better than any drug. I think I was beginning to feel stirrings of the need to return to the live comedy scene before lockdown happened. A year and a half later it’s still unclear what’s going to happen on that front. 

    When I first got to Cambridge, I just carried on pursuing the same things – football and drinking, and trying to get women. The I realised I might be able to put my time to better use. In the theatre there were pictures on the wall of those who’d performed there: Peter Cook, Monty Python, Mitchell and Webb, and there was this sketch group called Cowards with Tim Key in it. One of the many privileges the Footlights bestows is you see these ghosts and they have an evolutionary scale to them: it was the comedian equivalent of the hierarchy of a corporate institution. 

    I studied English, so read a lot too – really predictable names for a hipster like me. Sterne. Beckett. Joyce. Ballard. Eliot. All those writers have now become so culturally influential that you can’t pastiche them, or take them off. You’ve got to find your own voice. When I came to do my first novel Homes and Experiences, I realised that you need to experiment with people’s styles to find your own. It’s like learning guitar – you have to practice with other people’s songs. 

    My novel came about because I had gone on a trip similar to the trip the character goes on in the story. I wrote a series of blog posts as a procrastination and put them on Twitter. My literary agent asked what I’d been up to. I told her, and she sent them round to some people. I thought it was a vanity project – good for a few retweets and nothing more. 

    Then just at that point, an editor at Hodder & Stoughton asked us in to go and talk about it, and to my surprise suggested I turn it into a novel, with the structural idea of a story made up of emails. Sometimes it is one simple structural or conceptual tweak than can break the impasse on a creative project. 

    I went on the trip that the material came from in 2017. I guess that was a deliberate post-referendum excursion. I’d never really done any travelling when I was the appropriate age to go round Europe, so it was an overdue thing for me to do. But I suddenly felt particularly romantic about Europe, and the novel deals with the question of gentrification in European cities. 

    So now it’s out – added to the cacophony I suppose. Culture is overwhelming. If it comes to that, the world in general is overwhelming. You look at all the TV and the books and you’re aware of the waste and the disappointment. As Eastern religion teaches us, we can’t have any expectations for anything we do. We have to just put it out there – send it out with faith, love and passion, determination and sense of strident belief in what you’re saying. That’s all you can do. 

    Homes and Experiences is published by Hodder & Stoughton priced £13.99

  • Diary of a pandemic job-hunt

    Diary of a pandemic job-hunt

    Georgia Heneage left university in 2020 with the plan to become a journalist but is already widening her horizons 

    Leaving school or university and stepping into the category of the unemployed is daunting at best, terrifying at worst. As a generation born into a consumerist, perhaps even individualist society, we have been engineered to believe that our identities are irrevocably tied up in our career prospects: simply, we are led to believe that what we ‘do’ with our lives is central. 

    To some extent, that’s true. Jenni Russell recently wrote in a Times article: “Work is how society allocates so much of what we seek: money, status, social networks, mental challenges, companionship, prospects, marriageability, hope.” It’s hard to argue with that.  

    “Journalism – and print journalism, in particular – was a volatile and constantly shifting industry even before the pandemic.”

    But placing our work life on a pedestal can be damaging to the process of finding a job in the first place. There is overwhelming pressure on young people to achieve great things early on in their career and to hit upon the ‘perfect’ job straight away. This pressure can be stultifying, and creates an atmosphere of dog-eat-dog competitiveness which can hit hard as you enter the jobs market.  

    This has certainly been my experience as a postgraduate seeking an entry-level job in journalism: even at higher levels, it’s a ruthless and merciless industry, as seasoned journalists remind me all too often. As a graduate, that’s especially so.  

    Journalism – and print journalism, in particular – was a volatile and constantly shifting industry even before the pandemic. Now, newspapers are hardly hiring at all, and the few roles advertised are fiercely competitive.  

    That means that more and more journalists are forced to go freelance and accept a paycheck that is reliant on the next available commission. Much of the advice that I’ve been given has focused on freelancing, a process which can be demoralising and difficult for a little-known journalist finding her feet in the Grub Street world of the press.  

    The best advice that I have received so far has been to relax and remember that most careers are not a linear path to success, and that the concept of a ‘job ladder’ is a myth. 

    The direction of my career has altered slightly as a result, and I am now seeking the safety of a stable job and income. Having taken a moment of self-reflection, I realised that my knack for writing and researching and my interest in the big ideas shaping our world could land me a job which had similar characteristics to journalism, but which didn’t have to be confined to the industry. 

    I have now pooled my skills, values and motivations, and decided to broaden my job search to include the media as a whole and the publishing industry, which has resulted in my first interview with the How To Academy, an organisation which hosts talks and debates from some of the most influential speakers in the world. 

    The best advice that I have received so far has been to relax and remember that most careers are not a linear path to success, and that the concept of a ‘job ladder’ is a myth. Careers are twisting, fickle journeys, with unexpected bumps along the way which, once you’ve traversed them, come to look necessary in retrospect. Imagining my future in this way is liberating. It loosens societal expectations to dive head-first into the ideal job, and opens up the possibility of finding jobs which may not have been immediately appealing. 

    If I look at the data, I realise the scale of my challenge. The Office for Budget Responsibility reckons that unemployment more than doubled in 2020, and that 3.5 million are now affected. For young people entering the jobs market, this is disastrous. High levels of redundancy continue to mean that graduate-level or school-level jobseekers are now competing with a pool of skilled workers with years of experience and expertise under their belts.  

    It’s true that there are silver linings. For instance, the global transition to a remote-working culture and the development of the ‘gig economy’ may be what the future of white-collar working in a post-pandemic world looks like, and may provide more opportunities for those without work. Research has tended to find that working from home can have a significant positive impact on workers’ mental health and well-being, which in itself can improve productivity. A paper published in 2017 in the American Economic Review found that workers were even willing to take an 8 per cent pay cut to work from home.  

    But frankly, I find that cold consolation. The prospect of not going into an office every day strikes me as unnerving. The routine of commuting and mixing regularly with colleagues is attractive to me, and I don’t want to miss out through no fault of my own.  

    It has also been argued that the pandemic, for all its setbacks, presents an opportunity to rewire the world of work. Though this may be true for seasoned white-collar workers, at what cost does this come for those uneasy newcomers entering the workplace for the first time? 

    Georgia Heneage is an Oxford postgraduate and freelance journalist 

  • Emma Swift: ‘As a musician, you’re essentially a small business’

    Emma Swift: ‘As a musician, you’re essentially a small business’

    These past few years have taken everybody for a spin. In some ways my job’s been easier because I don’t have to try and tour and I’ve mainly done my record Blonde on the Tracks, a collection of Bob Dylan covers, online. I studied English literature at the outset, and then I became a journalist and also worked in a government department. But I quit all that and moved to Nashville, Tennessee to do music. 

    I was always a bookish kid and then grew up into a bookish woman. One of my songs on the new album is a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘I Contain Multitudes’ – and I think I was responding to the references to Walt Whitman, and to Edgar Allen Poe. I can still recite ‘Annabel Lee’ – so my education gave me the foundation to what I do now. 

    I’m often asked about the direction of the music business. With Blonde on the Tracks I chose not to stream it at the beginning of the release, because we’re in a pandemic year. I play essentially Indie folk, and at my age in the 1960s, I would have been playing the folk clubs – and today for people like me the bulk of our income is made touring. But when touring stopped that has meant mass unemployment in my sector. So I decided to make this an online-only release.

    What I would say to anybody interested in a career in the arts is just to be flexible and be open to change, because the music industry is always revolutionising itself. People will tell you that it’s all streaming now – but it’s not always going to be all streaming forever. It will pivot to something else. The music business does that constantly: 20 years ago the advice would have been that all vinyl is a total waste of time; nowadays vinyls are outselling CDs. The best thing to do as an artist is just to trust your instincts, and realise that you’re essentially a small business. There’s no right or wrong way to run your small business: there’s a multitude of ways that you can operate as a creative person.

    It’s also good to be persistent as a creative person, but also good to be able to take break if you’re feeling burned out by your art – because it can be exhausting. Give yourself permission to take time off. 

    But perhaps the most important thing is just because you do work another job that doesn’t make you any less of an artist. TS Eliot worked in a bank. A lot of people in the music business now have to have other gigs, because that’s the best way to survive and that’s okay.

    Of course, people who are creative are not very good at administration – it can be challenging and deeply boring. I find it very difficult to switch gears and it’s really hard for me to write if I’m also thinking about record distribution and invoices. But it definitely doesn’t hurt to know a little bit about all that – and anyway you’ve got to do it. I’m capable of organisation and chaos – depending on the day of the week.

    The other thing with music is that you have to be so present on social media. You have to really go out there and spend an hour at least. For an artist at my level, had I not been ubiquitous on the internet, the record would have disappeared. The fact that it didn’t is likely due to the fact I spent an enormous amount of time on Twitter.

    I would also advise engaging with other people’s music. If you’re not buying CDs, why would anybody else? I do have some regrets about the latest album. If I did it again I would span a broader cross section of Dylan’s work. I skipped over the 80s and the 90s, but all of these Bob Dylan songs have made me a better songwriter.

    That’s not to say I’ll be doing another album called ‘More Blonde, More Tracks.’ I now realise that what I’ve done is to put myself under an enormous amount of pressure to follow up a Bob Dylan with my own songs. When I look at that now, I think: “Gosh, that’s insane. Why would anybody do that?”

    Emma Swift’s latest album is Blonde on the Tracks

    Image courtesy of Emma Swift

  • Sophia Petrides on the problem of job-hopping – and how we tackle it

    Sophia Petrides on the problem of job-hopping – and how we tackle it

    Sophia Petrides outlines how to tackle a hidden problem within our society 

    Where are we with new talent? As we know, 24-39 year-olds have become known as the “hopping generation”, on account of the fact they tend to change jobs frequently. This is causing problems within organisations because of the high cost of employment, which includes high costs for recruitment and training and development. That’s before you even take into account the loss of knowledge within an organisation from high employee turnover. 

    In fact, job-hopping is costing the UK economy an estimated £71 billion and the US economy $30.5 billion annually, according to Gallup. The cost for employing someone new into an organisation is an average of £11,000 per person in the UK and $20,000 in the US.  

    So what accounts for this trend? First, it’s a question of annual remuneration and promotion in an era where middle-ranking jobs are declining. Technology means we don’t need so many middle managers, project managers and administrative jobs. That means there’s often little hope of promotion within organisations.  

    Nowadays, if you want a salary increase or a promotion, you need to leave the company and apply for another job. I experienced this situation first-hand many years ago, when I was leading a business within investment banking. Even though I was in a director role, the excuse I was given for not being promoted was that the organisation had surpassed the number of director promotions for that year and I would have to wait for another year. Following this conversation, I started working on my exit plan. 

    But it’s not just the money. There’s also a clear lack of respect and authentic communication from leaders and management. Today’s organisations often fail to create “safe” environments, where people can openly express their ideas without judgement.  

    In order for leaders to retain and attract new talent, they need to demonstrate empathy and compassion – a vital ingredient when it comes to humanising workplaces. In addition to that, visibility is important: today’s leaders shouldn’t let their workforce face adversity alone. This must go hand in hand with authentic communication, and clear training and development programmes.  

    In 2020, we have seen a surge in businesses collapsing and ongoing redundancies within organisations. All this has pushed global unemployment to record high. The good news is that once the economy starts to bounce back, we are going to see an increase in talent hiring. Even so that still means organisations will lose their talent to other organisations, and experience a drop in productivity in the process. Leaders need to act now, by investing in learning and development, and by deploying the wisdom in the older workforce to nurture talent.  

    Demographic trendlines also need to be taken into account. Birth rates are decreasing over the last quarter century, so much so that we’ve now reached a 20-year low. This means in turn that less talent will come into the future market. It also means we need our middle-aged workforce more than ever to stay in jobs and support the economy by contributing towards taxes for the financial support of the older retired generation. 

    So now is not the time to stop hiring the 50+ age group or to be pushing towards early retirement, as some professional services have the tendency of doing.  

    This issue of organisations failing to hire certain age groups is causing another ripple effect which has led to the increase of mental health difficulties. This is a global problem. Since Covid-19 struck, mental health has taken secondary priority, and it’s costing global economies billions. In the UK, the annual estimate of loss is £34.9 billion and in the US $53 billion. 

    Another group we need to take into consideration for the ongoing growth of our economy is returning to work mothers. They are insufficiently supported by organisations, even though they’re a huge asset. During times of adversity, they’re able to support leaders by staying close to employees and nurture them through the challenging times by putting into practice their agility, adaptability and resilience – traits they’ve learned and enhanced during motherhood.  

    In order to achieve a smooth return of women back into the workplace, organisations need to create appropriate training and development programmes. These need to build trust and respect, develop technological skills and also instigate clear communications around project management and deadlines. 

    There’s a lot to do. But if we’re successful, it will be a recipe to inspire significant growth in the global economy. 

  • Opinion – The government needs to reconsider school funding changes

    Opinion – The government needs to reconsider school funding changes

    Patrick Crowder

    The Department for Education has decided to base pupil premium funding for vulnerable students on old numbers. Rather than counting all eligible students from January 2021, the funding will be based on information from October 2020.

    According to the government website eligible students include those on free school meals, those who are or were looked after by the local authority, and those who have a parent serving in HM Forces or who have a Ministry of Defence pension.

    The Education Recovery Package provided an average of £6,000 to primary schools across the UK to help combat Covid losses. Many schools will lose more from this miscalculation than they received from the package.

    The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) has criticised the move, saying almost two thirds of schools that they surveyed would be left with less funding as a result.

    NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said that “the government is giving with one hand while knowingly taking away with the other” while speaking at the School Leaders Summit, highlighting the vulnerable position many families have been left in due to Covid-19.

    “These figures suggest that a large number of schools in England have lost more funding due to this date change than they are being given in the government’s so-called education recovery package,” Mr. Whiteman told the conference.

    Mr. Whiteman was speaking of figures obtained by the publication Schools Week through freedom of information act requests. Those figures also show that 102,000 students have become eligible for funding between October 2020 and January 2021. The total loss is projected to be at least £94 million.

    Shadow Education Secretary Kate Green MP also criticized the move, saying that “ministers have failed to protect family finances from the impacts of the pandemic” and accusing the government of “changing the criteria and making it harder for schools to support their pupils.”

    Even if re-evaluating this change means the government must pay more in pupil premium funds this year, investment in education will lead to economic growth in years following. A study by the Knowledge, Evidence, and Learning for Development Programme (K4D) conducted across many regions and economic areas found strong evidence that education investment “provides a clear boost to economic development”. 

    Children’s Minister Vicky Ford said that the change of date is meant to give schools more certainty for the future, removing the element of short notice. As of now, the only thing that many schools are certain of is that they will not receive the funds they need to support their students.

    The decision not to use the most recent information during a time of such instability is shocking. Three months of lockdown is a long time when speaking about the financial situation of children in need, and now is not the time to abandon families affected by the pandemic. 

    Photo credit: By Andy Mabbett – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90102031

  • New Stamp Duty calculator takes liability away from property lawyers

    New Stamp Duty calculator takes liability away from property lawyers

    Patrick Crowder

    As property lawyers and conveyancers scrambled to file Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) returns before the end of the Stamp Duty holiday, many calculated the amount owed incorrectly. This has caused professional indemnity (PI) insurance premiums to rise by up to 30%.

    SDLT Compass is a new tool which aims to make calculating SDLT easier and legally safer.

    When property changes hands, a SDLT return must be filed unless the transaction is exempt or falls into one of 49 different relief categories. If a property lawyer gets this process wrong, they open themselves up to liability and increased PI insurance premiums.

    Managing Director Chris Ward explains how Compass takes legal responsibility for the calculations it provides.

    “One of the big benefits of Compass is that it shifts the PI risk away from the property lawyer or conveyancer, so personal indemnity insurance premiums will be easier to get,” Ward tells us. “Also, there are a lot of claims going on right now against law firms for getting SDLT wrong.”

    Compass began as an in-house tool for the chartered tax advisor Cornerstone. When the firm saw a need and demand on the open market, it developed Compass from that tool and fully launched on May 1st 2021.

    “We’ve had a great response. We’ve signed up our first ten clients, and we’ve had 50 free trials over the last three weeks,” Ward tells us.

    There is no subscription or license fee for Compass. Instead, there is a £50 fee per SDLT calculation. There is also a 14-day free trial to get used to the software.

    Compass users answer a questionnaire which takes most people with practice about five minutes to complete. If the program finds any potential issues, it is flagged up for manual review.

    “About 90% of property completions in this country are standard. If it’s what we call a complex or high-risk case it gets referred to a member of our tax analyst team who will give specialist advice on an agreed-fee basis,” Ward said. “That can be anything from a couple of hours’ work up to a lot more.”

    Compass is currently the only SDLT calculator which takes PI responsibility. It also considers factors which other calculators do not. “Most property lawyers go to the HMRC website and use the calculator there. The problem is that the HMRC calculator doesn’t take into account any of the 49 different reliefs, and last year they admitted that it is only an estimator, not a calculator.”

    Compass does take reliefs into account and is constantly updated as new legislation comes through. “We’ve kicked the tires a lot and tested it, throwing any new piece of legislation at it,” Ward continues. “For example, on the first of April there was a 2% SDLT surcharge for non-resident purchases in the UK. We had that in Compass within an hour.” 

    The Stamp Duty holiday was designed to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on both property buyers and the market, raising the minimum price at which it has to be paid from £125,000 to £500,000. The tax break will begin tapering off from June 30th, and it ends completely on October 1st. 

    Ward explains that the launch of Compass was not timed with the end of the SDLT holiday, but that it has not proved to be an issue. “There’s a big shift towards protecting law firms against SDLT wrong advice, so I think the timing is good in that respect. We’re pleased with the way it’s been taken up.”

    There are normally around 100,000 property completions a month. Because of the Stamp Duty holiday, that number has risen to around 120,000. It has been estimated that one in five SDLT payments are incorrect.

    “I think if you take into account the time and money involved in defending claims that are happening more and more against lawyers who get SDLT wrong, protecting them, reducing their risk for PI and making them compliant…” Ward says. “Once Compass is embedded in an organisation it’s going to save a lot of money and a lot of time.”

    SDLT Compass hopes to net 10% of the UK conveyancing market and perform 10,000 audits a month in two years’ time.

    Photo credit: Christian Vasile on Unsplash

  • Why homeschooling is the answer post-Covid

    Why homeschooling is the answer post-Covid

    Minerva Tutors CEO, Hugh Viney, explains why the government needs to look to a future of learning in the home 

    We’re used to seeing “homeschooling” in the news, but what isn’t commonly known is that compared to most countries around the world, the UK has very relaxed rules about educating your child at home.  

    In America, where it’s hugely popular, you might expect visits from official homeschooling inspectors to check you’re doing it right. Meanwhile, in places like Portugal or Turkey it’s banned altogether. But over here, it’s remarkably easy – you don’t have to enroll your child at school, you can teach them whatever you like, so long as you let your local council know. 

    Now, this doesn’t mean the majority of homeschooling families are throwing the national curriculum in the bin and dressing their kids in hemp. Quite the opposite. Most are in it, like any sensible parent, to ensure their child has the best opportunities in their life ahead. To do this means getting qualified. You need to take GCSEs and A Levels, study just as hard as you would do at school, sit exams as a private candidate – usually at a local “centre” – and pitch for your place at university like all the others. 

    But coronavirus changed things. If home-educating parents had used a professional homeschooling agency this year, then their child would have received their GCSE qualifications after the summer exams were cancelled. Such agencies were able to provide impartial predicted grades, which, like grades predicted by teachers at schools, the government accepted. What happened to the tens of thousands of kids who were being homeschooled by their parents or individual tutors? The government decided parents couldn’t be trusted to rate their own children, and no results were awarded. That’s a colossal shame, and highlights that the government has long had its eyes closed to alternative forms of education. 

    It’s time they woke up. Figures show that 57,132 children were registered as homeschooled children in 2018 in the UK. That’s up from 24,824 in 2013, an increase of a mighty 130%. And the numbers further increased in 2019 by 80% again. Why the increase?  

    Pre-coronavirus, there was a growing feeling among parents that school wasn’t equipping students for the modern world. Common complaints include: lack of encouragement of self-learning; a dearth of communication skills mixed with technical skills; lack of creative problem-solving; and an absence of skills that might actually be useful for the workplace, such as organising your daily to-do list or calendar. 

    Traditional, brick-and-mortar schools are also increasingly unable to meet the flexible lives led by some families who aren’t always able to reside in the same place. And with most schools unable to support children with special educational and emotional needs, it often means homeschooling is the best way to go from a mental health point of view, too. 

    Now, post-Covid, most of the UK has woken up to the fact that not only is homeschooling possible, but in some cases, it might also be preferable. Many children have thrived in lockdown. Despite some tabloid horror stories, so too have parents. Even a glimpse of a new parent-teacher model was enough to prompt 1000s of enquiries to our companies inbox.  

    The story was largely the same. Parents started seeing homeschooling as a viable alternative to school. They loved spending more time with their kids, and they wanted to know if there was a professional, regulated way to do this. Combine this with the UK becoming Zoom-qualified overnight, and our latest venture essentially founded itself. It’s an online school called Minerva’s Virtual Academy, and it teaches children (currently GCSE only) the proper curriculum through an online virtual platform, with minimal requirement for human teachers. Mentors (real humans) keep track of pupils’ progress and our students make friends with other online homeschoolers through group classes and “after-school” clubs. 

    We’re not alone. Other new companies are springing up to meet the demand. Existing solutions, such as Wolsey Hall Oxford, have been quoted as turning away a sharp rise in demand. Even Harrow School joined the party, launching an “online” version of their illustrious school a few years ago.  

    So can the government learn anything from this model? At the moment, online schools like ours are private, which means we charge fees. But this is much cheaper than hiring a personal tutor to teach your children or local councils paying for expensive tutoring companies to support homeschooled kids. It’s also a fraction of the cost of sending your kids to an actual private school.  

    The government is backing the National Tutoring Program, led by the EEF, with £150 million to provide much needed after-school tutoring to hundreds of thousands of pupils across the UK post Covid-19. This is highly commendable. But could online homeschooling also be used to empower some of the lost “Covid Generation” of pupils, taking some of the burden off the schools for the mammoth catch-up task ahead?  

    The government needs to see the bigger picture. With scalable, innovative tech platforms that teach the GCSE and A level syllabus without the need for a teacher, and dedicated one-to-one mentors that support and nurture each child and ensure they don’t fall behind, online homeschooling solutions should have a part to play in the future. If traditional schools and their teachers are going to continue to be stretched, then online homeschooling done in the right way could be a solution. We may be outliers at the moment, but innovation in education is happening. I’m calling on the government to get with the program. 

    Hugh Viney is the founder of Minerva Tutors, whose Virtual Academy designs bespoke homeschooling programs for pupils aged 6-18, either at home or online