News

General Business News

Are you putting your business in danger from illegal copying? - 8 October 2008

Copywatch are offering rewards of up to £100,000 to employees for information about illegal copying from books, journals or magazines. A level of copying is permitted and information on this can be found in Chapter 3 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act at the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) website. In general copies can be made for research purposes and private study. Multiple copies of the same material are not permitted. Copywatch is the compliance arm of the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS UK Tel: 020 7400 3100 Email: cla@cla.co.uk

M5 Avonmouth bridge roadworks again! 2 September 2008

M5 motorway users can expect four months of roadworks and congestion as work to resurface the Avonmouth bridge (near Bristol) gets under way yet again. Work will begin on Tuesday, 2 September to resurface the southbound carriageway of the bridge, which carries about 120,000 vehicles a day. Three out of the four lanes will remain open, but delays are expected particularly at peak times and drivers are warned to add extra time to their journeys.

Major problems with waterproofing on the road on the bridge have left Highways Agency (HA) chiefs with no option but to rip up the existing surface and completely re-lay it. Water penetrating the surface had been causing the surface to break up and cause potholes on the carriageway. The existing surface will be replaced with a Swiss-designed material which is expected to last longer, and should be impervious to water, will be machine laid. It is expected to reduce the amount of maintenance in future.

Work to resurface the northbound carriageway is not expected to begin for another 12 months.

Safely using the Internet – 7 August 2008

As you will have heard via the media a significant threat to DNS was recently discovered. This is the system that translates names you can remember (such as www.soletradersunited.co.uk) to the number code machines use to find the site you want on the Internet. What this means is that it could allow malicious people to impersonate almost any website on the Internet. Since this was first discovered software companies across the industry have been quietly working to simultaneously release fixes for all affected name servers. To find out if the DNS server you use is vulnerable, visit www.doxpara.com (the site that initially raised the alert) to check if your server is still vulnerable.

Experts still say that the weakest link to the Internet occurs between the keyboard and the back of the chair. So think carefully about what you are doing, and how you use the Internet. If something seems too good to be true, it is. If somebody is asking you for your details ask yourself why they would need to know that and if necessary make a phone call first. And always keep your browser and virus software up to date.

Making the most of your pension plan – 21 June 2008

Hundreds of thousands of people who have invested in private pension funds have already lost out by receiving a lower retirement income.

If you have a personal, stakeholder and money purchase pension plan you pay money into a plan. When you retire you need to convert that into a retirement income you receive every month.

You do not have to take that monthly income from the company you saved with. You can shop around and may get a much better return, up to 15% better. This is a once in a lifetime decision – once made you can do nothing to change it.

The government, who have known since 2000 that pensioners were losing out, says it has already published a review of the market for retirement income and will be updating its progress in the autumn.

Rapid changes to the current account market – 19 June 2008

In recent weeks there has been a lot of activity in the current account market. While many customers will have been pleased by some of these changes, such as Barclay’s decision to reduce its unauthorised borrowing fees, most customers stand to lose out. The market is constantly changing and you need to keep a close eye on which bank account will work best for you or your company.
You need to know whether your account is usually in credit, in which case the interest offered on your balance is the most important (but if you need a cheque book, this may be lower than if you could do without one) and check on the rates offered by the banks. If you are regularly overdrawn you will need to look at penalties imposed, offers of interest free overdrafts, and monthly charges before working out which is the best deal for you.

VoIP (net phone) telephony accounts

There are some current issues with VoIP telephone systems:

Firstly, most VoIP systems will not allow callers to connect to 999 and 112 emergency services. An Ofcom survey found that 78% of those using net phone services which cannot connect to the emergency services thought that such a call was already possible on that network or were unaware that there might be a problem.

Phone firms which allow calls to national phone number and take and receive phone calls from normal phone numbers will have until September 2008 to connect their customers to the emergency numbers. In the meantime you might like to consider how you would call for help in an emergency.

Secondly, a new type of identity fraud, which sees hackers tapping into voice-over IP telephony accounts. Although it its early stages usernames and passwords from voice-over IP (VoIP) phone accounts are selling online for more than stolen credit cards. Credit card details have been traded fairly openly online for some time and can be bought for around $12 (£6) each. Apparently VoIP account details fetch a slightly higher price, at $17 (£9)

The information allows someone to use the telephone service for free. Net telephony fraud is still in its infancy, with eavesdropping on calls being the most common problem.

Usernames and passwords are routinely sent across the network when a call is made. These details are not plain text, but some systems are encoded in such a way as to be easily captured and decoded.

Call for Royal Mail to be partly privatised - 15 May 2008

Postcomm, the postal regulator, has called for Royal Mail to be partly privatised to safeguard the quality of the UK’s mail delivery service. It warns that bold action needs to be taken. This could lead to a private equity firm having partly owing the mail service, as in Denmark.

It also proposes that Post Offices Ltd should be separated from Royal Mail and kept wholly in public ownership.

In 2006 Royal Mail’s 350-year monopoly ended. With the intention of improving the mail service other licensed operators were given the right to collect and deliver mail. However, the initial finding of an independent review of the UK postal sector, commissioned by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, is that the liberalisation of the UK postal service has produced “no significant benefits” for either households and small businesses.

The independent panel warned there there is “substantial threat” to the Royal Mail’s financial security and this threatens the universal service - the collection and delivery to all UK addresses.

The Royal Mail still controls 90% of the postal market and has virtually no competition on door to door delivery. Large firms have benefited from the big growth in competition in the bulk mail sector - postal firms that collect, sort and transport bulk mail before handing it over to the Royal Mail for the final delivery.

The final report is due for release in the summer and will focus on ‘the policies needed to establish a sustainable future’. They said maintaining the ’status quo is not tenable’. Last year, Royal Mail lost £178m on stamped mail.

Despite the price rises in April, Royal Mail estimates it will still lose 6p on every stamped letter and parcel it delivers. A first class stamp for smaller items weighing up to 100g now costs 36p, up 2p. The cost of a second class stamp has gone up from 24p to 27p.

Proposed changes to the Trade Mark rules

Consultation on proposed changes to the Trademark rules is sought by the government by 27 May. The intention is to increase accessibility and streamline the rules to remove existing duplication, inconsistency and possible confusion.
The proposals should also increase the speed and efficiency of processes and reduce the costs. It should bring the UK into line with international best practice to enable ratification of the Singapore treaty on trade mark law.
http://tinyurl.com/yq6jah (email: consultation@ipo.gov.uk or fax: +44(0) 1633 811055, UK Intellectual Property Office Switchboard).

Creating a demand for innovation

The government has commitments to create a demand for innovative products and services that can be sold on world markets by proposals to harness government spending and use its regulatory response to climate change and global challenges. They are looking at the practicality of of setting a goal for SME’s to win 30% of all public sector business in the next five years. The White Paper included a commitment for each department to publish an Innovation Procurement Plan and initiates a review of the role regulation can play in stimulating innovation.
Commitments include:

• The introduction of ‘innovation platforms’ to co-ordinate government support and funding for those developing solutions to global challenges
• The provision of 1000 ‘innovation vouchers’ each year, by 2011, to help SME’s working with universities, FE colleges and research organisations to develop new products or services.
• Training Business Link advisors in Intellectual Property management to help small firms to exploit IT.
• The establishment of an innovation Research Centre

The proposals are in a 101 page document, Innovation Nation, downloadable at http://tinyurl.com/2dx7h8

Ten Year Enterprise Strategy

The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has announced a 10 year strategy to encourage enterprise in the UK. This includes limiting the cost to small firms of new regulation by restricting the amount of new regulation that each government department can introduce within a given period. Wherever possible small firms will be exempted from regulation or subject to simplified regulation. Extra funding is also available.
Measures include:

• There will be a 20% increase in funding to the Small Firms Guarantee Scheme. Firms more than 5 year old will be eligible if they are growing the business.
• £12.5m will be co-invested in a £25m capital fund for women-led businesses.
• £30m support for mezzanine finance provision through Enterprise capital funds.
• Tailored support for young entrepreneurs, women and the over 50s.

Enterprise Unlocking the UK’s Talent is available at http://tinyurl.com/2mhpkp

Driving Licences

Have you had a photo driving licence for 10 years? The life span of these licences is only ten years so check the date that your licence expires. The licence and photo must be renewed before the expiry date or the licence is not not valid.