Accounting & Business

  The view from Melvyn Neate, FCCA, director of internal audit, HM Revenue and Customs   What are your major challenges at HMRC?   Ensuring it continues to improve individuals’ and businesses’ payment of tax due and their receipt of the credits and benefits to which they are entitled. Remaining committed to improving customers’ experiences: […]

  Social care is frequently described as the ‘Cinderella’ service – unglamorous, out-of-sight and never given enough love and affection. But this Cinderella certainly isn’t cheap these days. Costs have risen to such a degree that they are the single biggest inflationary factor pushing at the budgetary doors of local authorities.   Something must be

  Fast facts   £4bn – amount lost annually to UK taxes through tax havens   $100bn – amount lost annually to US taxes through tax havens   26% – the world’s capital held in tax havens   1.2% – the world’s population living in tax havens     G20 catches tax havens   The

  The view from: George Black FCCA, chief executive, Glasgow City Council   What challenges do you face at Glasgow City Council?   Like other cities – improving levels of academic attainment and achievement, making the city cleaner and safer, improving the health and wellbeing of residents, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of services, preparing

  Councils enter the banking market   by Paul Gosling   The idea of a council having its own bank may sound far fetched – yet until 1976 the Birmingham Municipal Bank was exactly that, Birmingham City Council’s very own bank.   Now history could repeat itself as the impact of the credit crisis spreads.

  AB March 2009   Main stories – UK edition   Businesses fail   Company liquidations in England and Wales jumped by half in the last quarter of 2008, rising from 3,000 to 4,600 in a year. This was also an 11.9% rise on the previous quarter. In addition, there were a further 2,428 corporate

  Sarah Wood FCCA, programme director, National Programme for Third Sector Commissioning, run by the Improvement and Development Agency for the Government’s Office of the Third Sector.   Q. What are your biggest challenges?   A. Securing the commitment of public services commissioners to our programme to increase the use of the third sector to

  No one can doubt that the UK property sector is in crisis. For all the talk of the problems in the manufacturing and retail sectors, their discomfort is mild compared to that felt by property developers. Some retailers are suffering a 7% fall in turnover and car sales are down 11% – but housing

  AB February 2009   UK news   Brand briefs MPs on audits   ACCA chief executive Helen Brand was due to give evidence to the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee on the role of audit in the banking crisis as AB went to press. Reviewing the role of auditors in the banking crisis

  Mark Millar, FCCA, chief executive, Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust   Q. You led the turnaround of Hinchingbrooke trust, overcoming its financial deficit. How big a challenge was it to balance the budget? A. The underlying financial position was never as bad as it appeared. Some mistakes in business decisions were costly and a

  Requiring companies to show pension scheme losses in their profit and loss accounts would deal a potentially fatal blow to final salary pension schemes, says a leading firm of pension consultants. Aon Consulting was responding to proposals contained in the International Accounting Standard Board’s latest IFRS Update.   In the Update, published at the

Despite a rising number of job losses in the firms, the credit crisis continues to offer opportunities for accountants. The latest is the UK Government’s Asset Protection Scheme. Dozens of accountants will work with Credit Suisse, Citibank and the Treasury to value UK banks’ securities and loans that the UK Government has agreed to underwrite