Business News

Female learners stole the show at the In-Comm Training Annual Awards held on Friday, taking the two main titles and winning six of the nine honours.

Shiftec engineering apprentice Tia Till beat off competition from more than 100 young people and mature workers to win both Engineering & Manufacturing Technologies and the Outstanding Learner of the Year Awards, impressing judges with her manufacturing performance and desire to be the best in her field.

A severe shortage of working capital is set to cause a growing number of business failures as companies responding to the recovery become overstretched and insolvent due to a lack of cash, a leading Midlands-based restructuring expert is warning.

Working capital is the liquidity available to a business that is not tied up in its daily operations and is a key indicator of the health of a business. 

The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) has published a report showing that, over the past year, older people have been exiting the workforce earlier and that the employment rate of people aged 50-64 has also fallen slightly.

Some people are worried that older people "are seen by certain employers as ante-diluvian rather than digitally native".

Midlands Air Ambulance Charity has two high street stores based within the West Midlands helping to raise much needed funds for the vital, pre-hospital emergency service, and is encouraging you to get involved and shop local.

Despite closures throughout the pandemic, last year, Midlands Air Ambulance Charity’s five high-street shops and customers generated monies to fund 172 lifesaving missions – 59 air ambulance and 113 in the service’s two critical care cars, one of which covers Birmingham and the Black Country area.

Three young planners and six planning schemes are in the running to win at this year’s Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) West Midlands Awards for Planning Excellence.

Projects nominated for the prestigious RTPI West Midlands Award for Planning Excellence include large infrastructure schemes, state of the art housing and sports facility redevelopment.

A leading economist has cautioned that ‘ethnically and socially diverse’ younger asset poor workers are set to be hit the hardest by the UK government’s proposed National Insurance rise to pay for health and social care.

Speaking ahead of an MP vote on the Prime Minister’s recommended NI rise in the Commons, Professor Alex de Ruyter of Birmingham City University also said, “Principle beneficiaries will overwhelmingly be those of a middle class, white British background and their numbers are concentrated in the south of England.”

Georgia's leading natural gas provider, and Georgia Aquarium announced that the Aquarium is the first organization to take advantage of Greener Life for Business, a new service from GNG that purchases carbon offsets on behalf of GNG's commercial customers to make emissions from their natural gas use carbon neutral.

Greener Life for Business demonstrates how GNG can play an important role in helping commercial and industrial customers offset emissions while still maintaining day-to-day operations.

Becky Hellard has been named as Birmingham City Council’s Director of Council Management, as the organisation’s reshaping continues.

Having joined the council as Interim Director for Finance and Governance in October 2019, Becky has overseen the delivery of financial improvement plans across the council, strengthening the strategic approach to the council’s budget, and delivering financial resilience.

Azets, the UK’s largest regional accountancy firm and business advisor to SMEs, has appointed Heidi Webster to Forensic Accounting Director, leading a raft of promotions and one new recruit into its growing specialist team in Birmingham.

The team, formed two and a half years ago with just two people, now has six members and is experiencing its busiest ever period, with the Covid-19 pandemic likely to be a future driving factor for further growth as more disputes and investigations are likely to arise.

Facebook users who watched a newspaper video featuring Black men were asked if they wanted to keep seeing videos about primates by an artificial-intelligence recommendation system. Facebook described it as clearly an unacceptable error, before disabling the system and launched an investigation.

It said: "We apologise to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations." It is the latest in a long-running series of errors that have raised concerns over racial bias in AI.

Thirteen of the UK’s finest van operators are celebrating today after being announced as finalists in Logistics UK’s prestigious Van Awards 2021. After another round of judging, the winner of each category will be announced at a drinks reception and lunch at the Hyatt Regency Birmingham on Friday 24 September 2021, with entertainment to be provided by legendary English cricketer, Matthew Hoggard MBE.

Supported by Logistics UK’s Van Excellence Scheme and the Van Gold Partners – The AA, Bott Ltd, Brigade Electronics, Hertz UK Ltd, Lex Autolease, Quartix, and TVL – the awards celebrate the operators who have made a significant contribution to the industry over the past 12 months.

During the COVID-19 pandemic the UK Courts have been faced with a significant amount of divorce applications due to the pressure of family life during lockdown. The new digital divorce process, which is due to come into effect from 13 September, is set to speed up divorce applications whereby individuals can now use an online portal where the Court will acknowledge and process applications far more quickly.

The online process is more straightforward and avoids technical language and legal jargon which in effect simplifies the divorce process, meaning a more stress-free divorce.

City of Wolverhampton’s Shopmobility service will reopen to customers on Tuesday, 7 September.

Located in the City Centre Market, the service will initially be open on market days - Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, from 10am to 2pm, with plans to offer longer opening hours and additional days in the near future.

The Shadow Secretary of Health and Social Care the Rt Hon Jonathan Ashworth MP is to speak at a University conference aimed at helping people improve their health and wellbeing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Member of Parliament for Leicester South is the keynote speaker at the Intelligent Behaviour Analytics (IBA) Global Leadership Conference 2021 organised and hosted by Birmingham City University, to be held at the University’s Royal Birmingham Conservatoire on Wednesday September 8.

The title for this year’s conference is ‘IBA Global Leadership Conference; the road to resilience in a COVID-19 World’ and the event will explore individual experiences of the pandemic and the influence that effective Leadership can have in such pressured situations.

Young van drivers today are more health-conscious than ever before, new survey finds. The Vansdirect survey of 250 UK van drivers discovered that fewer than 20 per cent of young van drivers (aged 18-24) choose a fry up for breakfast, with the majority opting instead for healthier options, like breakfast bars, smoothies, and fruit.

Overall, only 26 per cent of van drivers today consume a full English while on the road. Surprisingly, just 4 per cent of van drivers skip breakfast entirely.

Severn Trent and Octopus Energy Group, the fastest growing energy supplier in the UK, have pledged to develop together renewable energy projects across the Midlands. It is the first time two major utility companies in the UK are teaming up to produce renewable power generation.

The two companies have agreed to explore potential opportunities to generate clean, green energy at Severn Trent sites and other third-party locations throughout the region. The collaboration agreement will support Severn Trent’s triple carbon pledge of reaching net zero carbon emissions using 100 per cent renewable energy and transitioning to a fleet of vehicles that are entirely electric by 2030.