Features - Page 154

As the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdown forced businesses to pivot and rethink their offerings to reinvigorate income streams and secure survival, education and training providers are among those that have had to overhaul their delivery systems to provide remote learning and render their physical premises Covid-secure and safe for learners to return.

This week, chancellor Rishi Sunak set out his “winter economic plan”, outlining how the government plans to help businesses after Covid-19 restrictions were tightened by the prime minister.

Since the mid-twentieth century, generations of people have taken it for granted that their children would go on to surpass their own successes. Those were the words of Nick Maughan, investor and founder of the Nick Maughan Foundation philanthropic project which supports education initiatives and civic support schemes for disenfranchised communities.

In our latest roundup, the former head of the Civil Service Lord O’Donnell has criticised the government for its lack of leadership throughout the Covid-19 crisis. Meanwhile, private housebuilder Beal Homes has recruited a new landscape design expert to head up a pioneering new service, and the founder of kefir business Chucking Goat celebrates becoming a Number One bestselling author on Amazon. Elsewhere, a prominent individual with Asperger’s Syndrome offers his advice on maintaining a positive attitude through lockdown to others who are affected by the condition.

In today’s leadership roundup, BeeLiving Student and Professional Homes director Katherine Le Provost stresses the need for today’s leaders to lead from the front and be capable of working at all levels of a business. Meanwhile, Imagile Group Limited has demonstrated further innovation of its processes by taking its summer conference online, and Grant-Jones Accountancy explain why numbers should be at the heart of keeping any business running. Elsewhere, Upturn Enterprise MD Anwar Ali calls on leaders to engage and have the ability to take people with them on a journey to plot a course toward eventual success.

Shetland-based childcare provider Hame Fae Hame has secured £88,000 in funds from the Scottish government, which will go toward helping reduce child poverty by improving access to care for families on low incomes.

With Covid and Brexit negotiations dominating the news cycle, it would be easy for people to forget the more humdrum yearly occurrences such as the self-assessment tax deadline. But as this year’s deadline approaches, one accountancy firm in the Northwest of England has come in for praise.

In our latest roundup of leadership quotations, we hear from Keir Starmer on the 2019 election, Lyndon Harfoot on responding to failure, Dean Kavanagh on listening to customers and Theresa May on good faith.

Charity and social enterprise Wave Leisure trust will receive a £500,000 loan from Lewes District Council to help restart its gym, swimming and exercise classes for Lewes district locals, to help alleviate the financial challenges brought about by the Covid-19 crisis and secure its future. Meanwhile, prime minister Boris Johnson has said that he wants to back renewables and transform the UK into the “Saudi Arabia” of wind power.

Michael Gove has announced that the government now believes people should work from home ‘if you can’, despite repeated recent pleas for workers to get back to the office.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has unveiled a new Jobs Support Scheme which will see the government and firms top-up wages covering up to two-thirds of employees’ hours, which will start in November after the furlough scheme ends and will last for six months.

Following comments from Mark Bates, chief executive of insurance software experts RDT, about the need for coding to become a viable career path for women, Durham University has announced that the number of women starting a compute science degree has doubled from last year.

It was news that very few will have wanted to hear, but the nation was left dismayed this week as prime minister Boris Johnson announced new national restrictions covering the whole of England in an attempt to curb rising Covid-19 cases.

Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons saw Boris Johnson and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer cross swords once more over the coronavirus test and trace system, while chancellor Rishi Sunak is understood to be considering his options to replace the furlough scheme when it ends on October 31. Meanwhile, CNC Property Fund Management managing director, Robert Locker, encourages leaders and employees to question the status quo and move away from blind adherence to established systems to help augment real knowledge.