HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have revealed that 37,000 people have plugged gaps in their National Insurance (NI) record since last April, boosting the amount of State Pension they will receive when they reach retirement age. The amount of State Pension you will receive is based on how many completed years you have in your NI record.
When it comes to disposing of computer equipment, how do you make sure that any storage media – hard drives, SSDs, flash drives and so forth – can’t be read by unauthorised users or have the data recovered? The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) reports that there have even been examples where several gigabytes of sensitive documents were retrieved from decommissioned photocopiers and printers.
The Charity Commission has issued a warning reminder to large, incorporated charities about changes to the law on preventing fraud. A new failure to prevent fraud offence will come into force on 1 September 2025 for all large organisations, including charities.
Following the recent run of storms and wet weather, the government has announced that £2.65 billion will be spent over the next two years to build, maintain and repair flood defences. Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency, so flood defences are becoming increasingly important in protecting both homes and businesses. The funding will also help protect farmland, which has also suffered in the recent storms.
Legislation was laid before Parliament last week confirming that the new National Living Wage and new Minimum Wage rates will take effect from 1 April 2025. While many businesses are feeling and have expressed concern about the increases, the sight of the legislation suggests that no reprieve is in sight.
February saw changes for the alcohol industry come into force that particularly affected winemakers. A temporary easement has been in place for wine that has treated wines with an alcohol by volume (abv) between 11.5% and 14.5% as if their abv was 12.5%. It was announced in the 2024 Autumn Budget that the easement would end on 1 February 2025. There have been calls to make the easement permanent, however the government has confirmed that the easement would end as planned.
Pemberton Timber Frame Ltd from Kent has been fined and ordered to pay costs following an avoidable injury to one of its workers. The company manufactures timber frame structures for the construction industry. One of its workers was operating a panel saw and was asked to perform a rip cut on a length of timber, i.e. cut down its thickness.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, delivered a speech last week that served as an update on the government’s plans for delivering economic growth. The plan largely focused on developments proposed around Oxford and Cambridge as well as a third runway at Heathrow. Here are some of the highlights from the speech.
Severe weather can be an enormous challenge for businesses, and we have seen plenty of it recently. Power outages, property damage, and forced downtime are not just disruptions—they can feel like setbacks that threaten months or years of hard work. If your business has been affected by recent storms, you are not alone, and it’s important to remember that resilience is built in moments like these.
The annual self-assessment tax return deadline has just passed, and for many business owners, the experience may have been a mad scramble to gather documents, double-check figures, and submit their returns and pay the tax on time. If that was your situation, you were in good company! HM Revenue and Customs said that 3.4 million taxpayers, almost a third, hadn’t submitted their tax return yet going into the final week before the deadline.
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