New research has revealed that only one in four civil servants believe their department is following the Government’s National Data Strategy, with skills and technology infrastructure likely to be significant barriers to the strategy’s effectiveness. Eighty-six civil servants from major Government departments including HMRC and the Home Office were surveyed as part of research by […]Read More

As Sunday Times Rich List shows record number of UK billionaires, their gains should be taxed the same as income from work Huge increases in wealth at top during pandemic shows how ‘wealth often begets more wealth’, think tank says Calls for redistribution through higher taxes on income from wealth, and scrapping council tax […]Read More

A battle is shaping up between major retailers over whether the UK should introduce an online sales tax, with Sainsbury’s demanding it to help revive struggling high streets while M&S argues it would have the opposite effect. A day before the government’s three-month consultation on changes to business taxes closes, the finance director of Sainsbury’s […]Read More

The system of executive pay is “broken”, the Church of England’s pension board has said, as it challenged more companies to ease the pain of soaring inflation by committing to paying workers the living wage. On the day retailer Next approved a 50% pay rise for its chief executive, Adam Matthews, the Church’s chief responsible […]Read More

A country pub has received a framed apology from a fashion publishing giant after being threatened with legal action unless the landlords changed its name. The Star Inn at Vogue was sent a cease-and-desist letter by Vogue’s publisher, Condé Nast, which claimed a link between the two businesses was “likely to be inferred”. The […]Read More

The boss of one of London’s biggest landlords has conceded that offices will probably never again be as busy as they were before the pandemic. Businesses have changed the way they operate, Toby Courtauld, chief executive of GPE, acknowledged, although he is also adamant that those who predicted the “death of the office” have been […]Read More

UK manufacturers have reported the joint-strongest growth in orders since records began and the fastest increase in output since July, according to the latest CBI’s industrial trends survey. The order book index, which measures how much orders are above or below normal, rose to +26 in May from +14 in April, matching previous records from […]Read More

Consumer confidence has fallen to a record low as concern grows about whether households will be able to afford rising utility, food and fuel bills. Confidence, as measured on the monthly barometer by GfK, fell two points to minus 40, the lowest score since records began in 1974. The results of the online survey of […]Read More