Business Support

Companies developing artificial intelligence (AI) to improve safety on construction sites, reduce time spent repairing the railways and cut emissions across supply chains are amongst a number of projects set to receive a share of £32 million in UK Government funding.

Announced 7 August 2024, almost 100 ground-breaking projects have been awarded financial backing as the government continues its mission to boost productivity and kickstart growth across the economy through AI, so everyone is better off.

A total of 98 projects from Southampton to Birmingham and Northern Ireland will receive funding, involving more than 200 businesses and research organisations spanning a range of sectors including public services, driving efficiencies and reducing administrative tasks.

As part of the government’s mission to build an NHS which is fit for the future, pharmacies that deliver prescriptions across the country are also set to benefit from this new financial support. A project led by Nottingham-based Anteam will see them collaborating with retailers and the NHS to improve the efficiency of their deliveries using AI algorithms. This technology will match the delivery needs of retailers and hospitals to existing delivery journeys, unlocking under-utilised capacity, cutting carbon emissions and delivering a better experience for patients.

New UK Science Secretary, Peter Kyle, has put Artificial Intelligence or AI at the heart of the government’s agenda to deliver change, sustained economic growth and improved public services.

The Secretary of State has appointed Tech entrepreneur and Chair of Advanced Research And Invention Agency (ARIA), Matt Clifford, to kick-start this work. He will deliver a new AI Opportunities Action Plan to identify ways to accelerate the use of AI to improve people’s lives by making services better and developing new products.

As well as exploring how to build a UK AI sector that can scale and compete on the global stage, the plan will also set out how to boost take-up of the technology across all parts of the economy, and consider the necessary infrastructure, talent, and data access required to drive adoption by the public and private sectors.
 
The Action Plan will play a vital role in driving up productivity and kick-starting economic growth. Estimates from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that while the exact economic impact hinges on the wider development and adoption of AI, and realisation could be gradual, the UK could ultimately see productivity gains of up to 1.5% annually.

Matt Clifford will deliver a set of recommendations to the Science Secretary in September. Alongside this, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) – acting as the digital centre of government – will also establish an AI Opportunities Unit to bring together the knowledge and expertise to take full advantage of AI and implement recommendations from the Action Plan.

The number of people classed as economically inactive has spiraled to 9.4 million.

Data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows the percentage of people employed has fallen to 74.4%, while a near record 2.8 million people are now out of work due to long-term sickness.

The figures come a week after the Secretary of State set out how the Government’s plan to get Britain working will tackle economic inactivity and drive growth in every corner of the country.

 Alongside action to make work pay, overhaul skills and address the root causes of worklessness, including poor physical and mental health, the plan will deliver:

• A new national jobs and career service to help get more people into work, and on in their work.
• New work, health and skills plans for the economically inactive, led by Mayors and local areas.
• A youth guarantee for all young people aged 18 to 21.

Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall MP said:

“Spiralling economic inactivity, rising unemployment and the UK standing alone as the only G7 country where the employment rate is still not back to pre-pandemic levels. This is a truly dire inheritance which the Government is determined to tackle.

Behind these statistics are real people, who have for too long been ignored and denied the support they need to get into work and get on at work.

It’s time for change – in every corner of the country. That is why we are taking immediate actions to deliver on our growth mission, and spread jobs, prosperity, and opportunity to everyone, wherever they live.

Our Plan to Get Britain Working again will overhaul jobcentres, deliver a youth guarantee, and give local areas the power they need to tackle economic inactivity and break down barriers to a brighter future.”

Ever wondered how your stake in your business is represented in your accounts?

The answer can be found at the bottom of your balance sheet. Simply put it is the value of your physical business assets less any liabilities; usually described as net assets.

But this is not the full story as there is a further intangible asset that is generally omitted from your accounts. It’s called goodwill. It is the extra value a buyer is willing to pay, over and above the net assets value of your business, for the rights to your customer lists and other non-physical assets that are generally left out of your accounts.

Ultimately, what you can sell a business for will be limited to what a buyer is willing to pay. But there is value in making a consistent estimate of what your business may be worth, especially if this exercise is undertaken annually, when your financial accounts are prepared.

In this way you will be able to see if the valuation is increasing or decreasing, and if increasing, is the increase at a sufficient rate to meet your planned future exit from your business?

Hopefully, many of you will already be monitoring your business value in this way, if not, please get in touch so we can figure out the best way to add this important indicator to your final accounts each year.

The Chancellor has promised to take immediate action to fix the foundations of the economy, rebuild Britain and make every part of the country​ better off.

In her first speech as Chancellor, Rachel Reeves pledged to leaders of some of the UK’s pioneering industries to build growth on strong and secure foundations built on stability, investment and reform, and forged through a new partnership with the private sector.

Addressing the difficult economic inheritance this government faces, she committed to taking immediate action to drive sustained economic growth, the only route to improving the prosperity of our country and the living standards of working people.

Setting out her first steps to deliver on the government’s commitments in its manifesto that every action it takes will be based on sound money and economy stability, the Chancellor promised a new economic model that will grow the economy and keep taxes, inflation and mortgages as low as possible.

The Chancellor said had the UK economy grown at the average rate of OECD economies over the fourteen years from 2010, it would be £143.3 billion larger – worth £5,053 for every household in the country. This could have brought in an additional £58 billion in tax revenues in the last year alone to sustain our public services.

Taking decisive action, the government is today announcing a series of measures to lay the foundations for a dynamic, modern and growing economy, including taking urgent steps to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years and the immediate removal of the de facto ban on onshore wind in England, as part of its clean energy mission.

You can view the detail of the Chancellor’s statement at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-unveils-a-new-era-for-economic-growth.

The new government will be judged by the actions flowing from these statements of intent, watch this space as we witness the progress of the “new brooms”.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has a simple guide that explains what you need to do in the 72 hours following a data breach.

The seven step approach advocated is set out below:

It’s understandable if you’re concerned about what happens next. But we’re here to help you understand what happened and to prevent it happening again.

By law, you've got to report a personal data breach to the ICO without undue delay (if it meets the threshold for reporting) and within 72 hours.

Pull the facts together as quickly as possible.

Your priority is to establish what has happened to the personal data affected. If you can recover the data, do so immediately. Also, you should do whatever you can to protect those who will be most impacted.

You should now assess what you feel the risk of harm is to those affected, whether that’s your customers, members or service users.

If possible, you should give specific and clear advice to people on the steps they can take to protect themselves, and what you’re willing to do to help them. If you don’t think there’s a high risk to the people involved, you don’t have to let them know about the incident.

If the breach is reportable, you can report it online.

The ICO have a help line you could call, 0303 123 1113, or view online advice at https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/advice-for-small-organisations/72-hours-how-to-respond-to-a-personal-data-breach/.

Exit can be seen as quitting, especially if the exit discussed is your business interests.

But actually, business exit planning is an essential part of general business planning. In some respects, it is the most important aspect of business development planning as it shines a light on the timing and value you can expect when you retire.

Without a formal exit strategy, you may rush into a sale or dissolution of your business that undervalues its worth when you decide to hang up your business boots.

Hopefully, when you do retire, it will be from choice. But don’t forget there are numerous factors, ill-health and economic uncertainties for example, that may force you hand, and as we all know, being required to quit is likely to result in your business being disposed of at an undervalue.

Much better to start the planning process now while you still have choices. For example:

• Do you have family members you can groom for takeover?
• Do you have a management team who might be interested in a buyout?
• If you sell to interested third parties, at what value do you set your price tag?

And should you be linking up with an agency to handle the sale for you?

And finally, what are the tax consequences. How much of your likely sales proceeds will you be able to keep?

If you have not yet considered these issues please call so we can consider your options.

If you receive documents from overseas customers or suppliers and you need to translate text into English, have you used Google Translate?

It’s a free, but incredibly powerful facility.

You can select to translate:

• Individual blocks of text that you add to view in alternate languages.
• Images with text.
• Documents.
• And really useful, websites. Use this to view overseas sites in English or an English site in a non-English language.

Especially useful if you need to translate contracts to ensure you fully understand terms and conditions.

And if you are courting an overseas customer use this facility to generate your website into a local language and then send the translated link to your customer. Alternatively, add links to your website so casual overseas visitors can see your site in a local language.

But beware, before taking commercial decisions based on Google Translate translations, best to have the translated copy proof-read by a local advisor to make sure there are no ambiguities. Similarly, have a translated websites read by a fluent person to reveal any errors in translation.

Google’s own reply to the question – ‘Is Google Translate reliable?’ is:

Since its inception in 2006, it has become one of the top-rated machine translation (MT) tools, currently supporting 133 languages, having added 24 in 2022. Accuracy varies depending on language pair and content type, though some reports show Google Translate reaching 94% accuracy.

It is pretty much universally accepted that shareholders (usually directors) of small companies take out their remuneration as a small salary – a salary pitched high enough to secure NIC benefits but not high enough to that employee NIC contributions are payable – and any balance as dividends.

Unless directors have the need for remuneration in excess of the current basic rate Income Tax band (set at £50,270 for 2024-25) then salary plus dividends should be set at a level that does not exceed this limit.

But there are other ways that director/shareholders can extract profits from their company. For example, interest can be paid to directors if they have credit balances on loans made to their companies. In some cases, this interest will be covered by the Personal Savings Allowance.

Directors can also choose to leave accumulated profits and cash balances inside their companies and build up these reserves as rainy day funds. Dividends can be taken from accumulated reserves (after corporation tax has been paid) even if the company has ceased trading.

If you would like to revisit your present strategy for extracting profits, or your longer term exit planning from your business, please call so we can consider your options.