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Productivity was a central concern of the summer Budget. The big rise in minimum wage – to be renamed the national living wage – assumes employers will invest in skills, equipment and R&D to increase productivity and so generate the higher revenues that can be converted into higher wages. At present the UK lags on […]

Despite five years of austerity pain, the United Kingdom is only halfway towards achieving the goal of eliminating the fiscal deficit. This is despite unemployment falling and growth reaching 2.6% last year. The underlying problems are not merely the continuing impact of the global banking crisis and bail-outs, but also the related collapse of tax

Reform must be embraced, not resisted, ACCA members were told at its 2nd Local Government Summit in London. Former Westminster City Council chief executive Sir Peter Rogers gave the opening plenary speech, with an upbeat message about public sector reform. “Achieving lasting reform in the public sector is ever so easy,” he told the conference.

Does a postcode lottery exist in healthcare delivered by the NHS?  The British Medical Association is in no doubt that it does.  Its spokeswoman says: “The BMA believes that every patient should have access to the same high quality health care, wherever they live.   “Unfortunately access to certain services, and in some cases the

The financial squeeze on the NHS has become unbearable and the solution has to be selective charging for health services, or else higher rates of tax, according to a group of NHS leaders in a letter to The Times.  The signatories – who include two non-executive directors of NHS England, leaders of four royal colleges

The ancient Chinese curse wishes enemies to live in “interesting times”.  Richard Harbord FCCA – chair of ACCA’s Public Sector Network Panel and interim CEO of Boston District Council – opened ACCA’s Local Government Summit by making clear he knows his Chinese curses.  “This is an interesting time,” he said.   “Local authorities always cope

Everyone agrees that integrating health and social care is a good idea – it would improve patient outcomes and reduce inefficiencies, such as bed blocking.  But whether the Government’s new health and social care Integration Transformation Fund is the correct way of approaching this is much less clear.   Michael Schofield – chair of ACCA’s

The UK has embarked upon the most radical reconfiguration of welfare benefits since the modern system was established after the Second World War.  “Some of the reforms are just cuts, with less money in the system,” explained Dave Simmonds, chief executive of the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion.  “The 1% benefit uprating is an

The Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust crisis has led to more questions than answers.  One of the inescapable anxieties is whether Mid Staffordshire was simply too small to be a viable and sustainable entity.   In 2011/12, Mid-Staffordshire’s income was £156m, making it one of the smaller trusts.  Robert Francis QC, who led the inquiry, indicated

The 2012/12 financial year has been a tough one for the ‘shadow’ clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) as they got ready to replace primary care trusts (PCTs).  But their job will get much more difficult as their commissioning role goes live in April.   Not the least of the challenges facing CCGs will be in managing

UK Worldspreads sues E&Y [lead] Ernst & Young is being sued over its audits of Worldspreads, which is being administered by two KPMG partners.  Jane Moriarty, special administrator of Worldspreads and restructuring partner at KPMG, said: “The appointment of administrators to Worldspreads followed the discovery of accounting irregularities…. We have been reviewing the reasons for

UK KPMG hit by auditor’s leak [lead] KPMG has resigned as auditor of both Herbalife and Skechers after it emerged that a partner had supplied confidential market sensitive information to a golf partner for use in share trading.  Scott London was lead audit partner for the companies and managed KPMG’s Los Angeles business unit.  KPMG