Accounting & Business
View from the front line: Accounting & Business
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 for a public expenditure squeeze [...]
Councils bank on it: Accounting & Business
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. Some local authorities, including Birmingham, are looking [...]
Accountancy news March 2009: Accounting & Business
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 involvencies in the final quarter [...]
Sarah Wood profile: Accounting & Business
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 deliver services. Ensuring the programme [...]
Easing the property pain: Accounting & Business
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 transactions [...]
Accountancy news February: Accounting & Business
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 headed the committee’s list of matters it [...]
Profile: Mark Millar: Accounting & Business
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 small district general hospital [...]
Standards change ‘could kill final salary pension schemes’: Accounting & Business
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 end of January, [...]
Bad times - New opportunities: Accounting & Business
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 in [...]
Profile: Sir Andrew Likierman: Accounting & Business
Sir Andrew Likierman profile
What do you bring to the post of NAO Chair?
What I hope is a good combination of experience, expertise and independence. I’ve worked with Parliament as advisor to several Select Committees, in government for many years and in the private sector. I’ve also specialized at different times on public spending, on government [...]
