Archive for December, 2009
Public sector pensions climb political agenda: Public Servant
With a fiscal deficit this year alone of £175bn, the challenge of how to meet public sector pension liabilities exceeding £1trn is rapidly jumping up the political priorities.
The new context was dramatically illustrated in David Cameron’s high profile ‘hairshirt’ speech, in which he proposed cutting the number of MPs. He also argued that “public sector [...]
Review of the year: Co-operative News
Review of the year
What a year it has been. We knew it would be tough, but it was worse than that. The recession has been the most severe since the Great Depression. Inevitably, many mutuals went down with the wider economy.
The mutual sector most badly hit has been the building societies. The reasons for the [...]
Riding to succcess: Belfast Telegraph
Wendy McCaughan came up with a simple yet obviously sensible idea back in 2004 – to use the expertise developed to protect racing motor cyclists to provide similarly effective protection for horse riders. But she did not expect that it would take four years of determined effort to get her product to market.
Until Wendy came [...]
Resisting water - and the downturn: Belfast Telegraph
Innovation and flexibility are important principles in running any business, no matter how small. It is an approach that is serving Bangor’s Darren McKee very well and helping him survive the recession.
Darren started running his own business as a self-employed tiling contractor in 2002. After three years, he realised there were opportunities to diversify in [...]
The caring industry: Belfast Telegraph
Rosemary Armstrong can be described as a serial entrepreneur. Since the late 1970s Rosemary has been starting care homes, running them and then very successfully selling them to move onto new care projects.
This process began back in 1977 in Southampton in England with one care home, which Rosemary sold in 1988 to move closer to [...]
Questions of Cash: ‘White van lost me my excess’: The Independent
Q. A white van crashed into me in January this year on a slip road – and quickly drove off. I wrote down the name of the company and the van’s registration number. I reported this to the police, who confirmed the company owned the van and gave me an accident number, but told me [...]
Better mortgage deals drive home market recovery: Belfast Telegraph
There are signs, at long last, of the beginnings of a proper recovery in Northern Ireland’s housing market. But there remains a real risk that house prices could fall back again in in 2010.
The latest survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reports an increase in property purchases, with more first time buyers entering [...]
Questions of Cash: ‘NatWest is charging me £400 for dormant account’: The Independent
Q. I had a bank account with NatWest until a couple of years ago. I tried to close it, but NatWest advised me to keep it open in case I ever wanted to bank with it again.
The account had a few pounds left in it and I stopped getting statements in December 2007. I assumed [...]
Northern Ireland avoids building society decline: Belfast Telegraph
A few years ago a Parliamentary committee investigated the demutualisation of several building societies. It concluded that the conversion of building societies – owned by the customers – into public limited companies – owned by shareholders – had served the customers very badly.
Interest rates went down for savers, but up for borrowers. The effect could [...]
Beware bad advisors: Belfast Telegraph
The description of Lisburn’s Noel Heaney by his regulator was damning: he “lacks integrity and is not competent to run an authorised firm”.
As a result, his mortgage broking business — Heaney Finance — has been banned by the Financial Services Authority.
Previously Heaney sold secured and personal loans and consolidated debt services, as well as mortgages.
But [...]
