Whilst the Gift Aid scheme is not undergoing the kind of changes it experienced in 2006, it is changing again and it’s important to understand how these changes will affect your organisation.
Up until this year, Gift Aid claims have been processed manually, with claimants being required to compile, print-out and submit details of their claims to HMRC via the postal service. Using this current method of submission, claims are paid within 21 days of receipt. From April 2013, this is set to change in favour of an automatic system, aimed at expediting the process – both in terms of the length of time applications take to create and to process.

How will Gift Aid be claimed from April 2013?

Gift Aid claimants will no doubt be pleased to learn that the current, labour-intensive method of manual claim submission will no longer be the only option. An online portal, entitled Charities Online, will come into effect from April 2013, allowing claims to be processed via the internet without a piece of paper or a postage stamp in sight.

As an existing Gift Aid claimant, how will the changes affect me?

In short, they don’t really have to, if you don’t want them to. For claimants who do not wish to change from the postal method of submission which is currently in place, that option will remain.
In this scenario, the only thing changing will be the form itself, with the current R68 forms being replaced by new ChR1 forms. HMRC have no plans at present to discontinue this practice as the provision must exist for all eligible organisations to claim Gift Aid, irrespective of whether they have internet access or not.

For those who wish to utilise the new Charities Online facility, the apparent benefits are twofold:
A significant reduction in the amount of time charitable organisations will need to spend on claim creation;

The complete removal of postal costs and the additional time expenses associated with such. This may be seen by some as a nominal financial expense (paper, ink and postage) but consider also the environmental benefits: the carbon costs associated with many thousands of manual claim submissions are far from insignificant.

Whilst HMRC’s payment period will remain at 21 days, removing the need physically to transport the forms from claimant to recipient will mean that online claimants should receive their money slightly quicker (with 1-2 days being shaved off the claims process).

In addition to processing the claims online, the option is also available to utilise specialist Gift Aid software to automate the process, sending all the relevant forms and information directly to HMRC, requiring a minimal amount of user intervention.

Merlin Software are a Yorkshire-based software supplier to charity and tourist attractions across the UK.

To celebrate what’s great about Barnsley a 12 hour tweetfest will take place on Friday, 5 October.

the event aims to encourage people from across the borough and further afield to go online and share what they love about Barnsley by using the #barnsleyisbrill.

The tweetfest has been created by the One Barnsley Communications Group which brings together the public, private, community and voluntary sectors. Each of the organisations involved (including Barnsley Chronicle, Barnsley College, Barnsley Hospital, Berneslai Homes, Chamber of Commerce, Council, Job Centre Plus, University Campus, South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue, South Yorkshire Police and Voluntary Action Barnsley) will be tweeting throughout the day to say why they think ‘Barnsley is brill’. The event will run from 8am to 10pm on Friday, 5 October.

Owen Gleadall, chair of the One Barnsley Communications Group, said; “There’s a lot to celebrate about Barnsley – from investment in new schools and the college to great volunteering, up and coming and thriving businesses, safer neighbourhoods, good healthcare and the planned toen centre developments. We’re really starting to see the difference about how people feel about Barnsley”

“Of course, there’s always more to be done and we’re working together to make sure improvements continue to be made. this campaign is simply about getting behind Barnsley and saying we’re proud of where we live, work and play.”

for further information about the campaign, Please contact Owen Gleadall, chair of the One Barnsley Communications Group on 07802 457284 or email owen@merlinsoft.co.uk

THE shortlist has been revealed for the Yorkshire Graduate Employer of the Year Awards, with supermarket chains Asda and Morrisons, which are headquartered in the region, among the finalists.

The awards, which are organised by Graduates Yorkshire, aim to celebrate the commitment shown to the personal and professional development of graduates by employers across Yorkshire and the Humber.

Others in the shortlist include cloud computing firm virtualDCS, charity Teach First, which addresses the problem of educational disadvantage, public relations firm Approach PR and search marketing agency Epiphany.

Martin Edmondson, Graduates Yorkshire chief executive, said: “We wanted to create an award that recognises the vital role that graduate employers play in the economic growth of the region, both in terms of employment and business growth.“

Graduates Yorkshire said each of the shortlisted companies showed a clear commitment to the recruitment of graduates by partnering with universities, offering open days, webinars and advice blogs. They also sought to equip their recruits with skills above and beyond their immediate job role.

Many of the shortlisted companies offered tailored training programmes, one-to-one mentoring and supported their staff to complete externally accredited professional qualifications.

Graduate recruiters were asked to nominate themselves for the awards in one of the three categories: micro, medium and large scale organisations.

For the category of Micro Graduate Employer of the Year, the shortlist is as follows: HR180, Merlin Software, Approach PR, virtualDCS, and SLM Search & Selection.

In the Medium-sized Graduate Employer of the Year category, the shortlisted firms are: Epiphany, Trustmarque Solutions, Sagar Wright Search & Selection, Avoca Systems, and New Chapter Consulting.

In the category for Large Graduate Employer of the Year, the shortlist is: Morrisons, Tribal, Asda, Teach First, and Cameron.

The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony held on September 6 in Leeds.

An overall winner will also be decided from the winners of each category.

Graduates Yorkshire, which was originally set up with public money, won the university spin-out category in the Yorkshire Post Excellence in Business Awards in 2008.

It was co-founded by Yorkshire Universities to provide a service for the region’s graduate job seekers and employers looking for graduate talent.

With a few weeks to go until the Olympic Games begin, excitement and anticipation are building, not just in London, but across the whole of the UK. In addition to lifting the mood of the nation, the Olympics are expected to be a boost to the UK economy generally, and to the retail sector in particular, where all hands will need to be on deck to maximise profitability and provide a much needed commercial boost.

But what does this mean for retail sector employees and what do retailers need to think about to avoid any potential issues here?

For eight Sundays, between 22 July and 9 September, shops with floor space of over 280m2 will not be subject to the traditional “Sunday hours” trading restrictions. Increased footfall and longer trading hours will, almost certainly, lead to increased sales, for retailers in London particularly. Overall, it is estimated that the Olympics will boost retail sales by approximately £200 million (Source: Verdict Research). This can only be welcome news to retailers, yet the relaxation of trading hours could mean that their employees find themselves having to work more hours, and, perhaps, miss out on some of the excitement.

Furthermore, while office staff across the country may be afforded the perk of watching events within the workplace, or may be allowed to work flexibly to avoid peak London transport times, retail staff are less likely to reap these benefits if they are working on a shop floor with working hours dictated by store opening times.

Do employees have to agree to work additional hours?

If an employment contract does not include a right to require staff to work additional or alternative hours on a Sunday, or if the contracts do not have a right to vary working hours, employers may seek to implement a change to the contracts with employee consent. An employee can however refuse to give their consent to such a change. If they do refuse, employers could impose the changes unilaterally, but this may risk claims of constructive unfair dismissal.

In addition, employers will need to ensure that any unilateral changes do not discriminate against particular protected groups of the workforce, for example, on the grounds of religion or belief, or sex.

Employers also need to avoid inadvertenty breaching the maximum 48-hour working week under the Working Time Regulations 1998, or else seek employees’ written consent that they will opt out of the maximum working week.

Managing employees during the Games

If employers allow employees to take time off to watch and/or attend events during the Olympics, they should be careful not to set a precedent for all future events. If employees are allowed to watch the mens’ 100m final during working hours, would this create an expectation amongst the workforce that they should be able to watch other major events in working hours, for example, the Wimbledon final or football World Cup?

By putting a clear and effective Olympics policy in place, employers can avoid creating such an expectation. Any such policy should state that arrangements surrounding the Olympics this year are exceptional because London is the host, and the Olympics and Paralympics are unique events.

A supportive and flexible attitude is key

The London Olympic Games are undoubtedly going to boost morale and create a sense of excitement throughout the country, while the increased footfall on London’s high streets in particular, is likely to increase retail sector spending and bring good news for retailers. However, it’s important for all retailers to keep the well-being of their staff in the front of their minds throughout the Games. While it may not be possible to meet every employee request, retailers must look to be supportive of any concerns staff have around working long hours or travelling at busy periods, and to ensure that where possible, they’re able to join the rest of the country in celebrating this unique sporting, cultural and historical event.

Source: Retail-Week.com

THE price of clothes, shoes and electrical goods plunged at its steepest rate for 28 months in March, new figures show, piling further pressure on the embattled high street.

Non-food deflation increased to 0.9 per cent in March versus a year earlier, according to the British Retail Consortium’s Shop Price Index.

That compared with non-food deflation of 0.7 per cent in February, suggesting conditions and margins continue to deteriorate for many retailers.

“Weak demand for many goods means retailers continue to battle hard for consumer spending by keeping prices down wherever possible,” said BRC director general Stephen Robertson.

“Non-food prices fell at their fastest for 28 months. Electrical goods and clothing and footwear experienced the biggest price falls driven by widespread promotions.”

Consumers are struggling amid stagnant wages, rising unemployment, flat house prices and economic uncertainty, resulting in weak spending on non-essential items.

The BRC said deflation in clothing and footwear is running at 6.5 per cent, while the price of electrical goods is 4.7 per cent lower than a year ago.

However, the overall rate of shop price inflation increased to 1.5 per cent, as food inflation continued to climb, driven by the high oil price. The price of food was 5.4 per cent higher in March year-on-year, versus 4.2 per cent inflation in February.

Mr Robertson said: “The cost of oil has shot up 11 per cent since the start of the year and that’s driven up transport and manufacturing costs, increasing food inflation.

“Retailers are also shifting away from multi-buy reductions on specific items in favour of money-off coupons for an entire shop, giving customers more flexibility and producing savings on food shopping which don’t show up in this index.”

The acceleration in clothing deflation was boosted by lower cotton prices, discounts and promotions, said the BRC. Cotton prices are now 55 per cent down on a year ago, it said.

Mike Watkins of Nielsen, which co-authored the research, said: “With inflationary pressure continuing in the food supply chain we can expect supermarkets to keep a strong focus on promotional activity over the next few months. Shoppers are following the deals and will continue to seek out the best value for money.”

The inflation figures came as accountancy chain PricewaterhouseCoopers warned of a “zero sum game” in retail, meaning for every winner, there will be a loser.

Ian Logan, director in the valuations team at PwC in the North, said: “We would normally expect profit multiples for retailers to rebound after a recession as market sentiment improves.

“While this may be the case for some top-performing players, prospects for real growth are limited in what is a hugely competitive marketplace.”

Source: Yorkshire Post

The fall into administration of the likes of Peacocks, La Senza and Blacks’ may be part of an ongoing clear-out of retail stores that ultimately helps the remaining players on the high street to prosper.

This was the view of Garry Wilson, managing partner at turnaround specialist Endless, who recalls the collapse of Woolworths resulted in £2 billion of revenues being spread around the rest of the high street including Endless investment The Works.

Speaking at the Real Deals UK Mid-market 2012 Conference in London Wilson told delegates there would be other such failures as retailers fail to make the next quarter’s rental call, “This is hopefully the forest fire that was needed to let other retailers prosper.”

But despite this rationalisation he still questioned the appeal of retail to private equity investors. Going into administration means unprofitable stores can be dumped and leases re-negotiated, but Wilson cited the need for investors to give these troubled retailers big injections of working capital.
“Suppliers will be nervous of granting credit to a ‘newco’. We experienced this when we bought TJ Hughes [after it collapsed]. Asian suppliers now want paying up-front so some retailers will need huge investments in them and I can’t see who’ll invest?” he asked.

This is not the only problem, according to Paul Cartwright, managing partner at Rutland Partners, who suggests there are also structural issues facing the industry: “Do people actually want to go into stores. What’s the mix – out-of-town, online, high street? You need to be confident about some things [when investing], but with retail at the moment it is difficult putting pegs in the ground.”

For Andy Bond, chairman of Wiggle and former chief executive of Asda, this situation is exacerbated by the prospect of “four to five years of stagnant growth”, which when combined with the rise of the online channel will, he says force a fundamental re-think of how many stores retailers need.
He cites research from Javelin Group that suggests a clothing retailer previously needed 300 stores for a national presence whereas today 150 will suffice. “The property market has not yet caught up with the fact that there will be no stores growth in retail,” says Bond.

Peter Kemp-Welch, partner at Piper Private Equity, agrees the internet is having a “profound effect” on physical stores and that the recent announcement by Tesco that large stores were not going to be its key focus in the future was a “line in the sand that will wash through the whole of the property market”.

The need for fewer stores is a manifestation of the tough environment driving out the “marginal”, according to Roger Pedder, chairman of Bargain Booze and former chairman of Clarks, who believes the ultimate result could be wide-reaching.

“In a depressed economy it’s the marginal that fail – whether that is stores, retailers or sectors. The high street in many provincial towns is marginal compared with retail parks or the internet,” he argues.

Bond does not believe it is the internet that will necessarily be the death of high street stores and he refutes the argument that online-only merchants like Wiggle will benefit from high street bike retailers such as Evans effectively acting as show rooms for their online rivals.

“I’m not totally pro-internet because the statistics bear out that a huge percentage of in-store purchases have been researched online first. Eighty five per cent of purchases in-store will start online. It’s now a multi-media world. I’d say Evans is benefitting from Wiggle,” he suggests.

Where he thinks online does benefit is from the impressive range it can offer: “The killer for online bikes sites is that while independent stores have 3,000 SKUs Wiggle has 40,000 and 95% are in-stock and we offer next day delivery. Why get cold and wet going to the high street bike shops.”

Although Bobby Hashemi, partner at Risk Capital Partners – that has investments in Giraffe and Patisserie Valerie, says the leisure and hospitality sector has not been affected as much by the internet as the retail industry, he suggests 50% of people look online before visiting a restaurant – often for money-off vouchers. “It is having an effect on marketing as the voucher market is online and this is driving a lot of restaurant marketing,” he says.

But whatever the segment – leisure or retail – there is unanimous agreement that accessing debt is very tough at the moment for most businesses. But there are always exceptions for strong, differentiated operators.

Into this camp sits Wiggle, according to Bond, who says “we did not find it difficult to get debt”. However, he points out that it is an internet-only player that derives 50% of its sales and profits from overseas so it is a much more attractive proposition to banks and investors. “To a bank it fits into a very different bucket than a high street retailer,” he says.

The retail bulletin

Burger chain McDonald’s is using the UK as the base for a trial of four cutting-edge stores involving a raft of innovative technologies that it intends to roll out around the world.

Speaking at the Wincor Nixdorf Executive Briefing in New York – alongside the NRF Convention & Expo – Mark Fabes, IT director for McDonald’s Restaurants, stated that the UK was now leading on customer technology, which represents a radical departure from 2004 when he says the business was “on its knees”.

As part of its ‘Spirit of Family’ trial the company has four outlets around the UK that are the test-bed for initiatives in both the front-of-house and the kitchen. Each restaurant is fitted out with Wincor Nixdorf self-service kiosks that Fabes says enable customers to order at their own pace and which are particularly popular with families.

All orders are then transferred onto an order board at the front counter that shows if a customer’s food is ready or being prepared. Also at the front counter is a screen that shows images of what has been ordered thereby allowing any incorrect orders to be picked-up.

With free wi-fi and contactless payment platforms already in place in all McDonald’s UK stores Fabes says there is the potential for handheld ordering technologies to be implemented. By taking NFC technology he recognises the “massive opportunity for queue busting and taking additional orders from up-selling”.

Utilising this wi-fi are the 16 iPads that have been installed in the four trial stores. “They’ve been a big hit with children as lots of people do not have access to the internet [at home]. We had three stolen in the first week!” he says.

Also appealing to children are the interactive surfaces that enable games to be played on the surface of specific tables, and for more active games-playing there are the interactive floors. “We’re adding to the time people spend in-store so they’ll order extra coffee, a dessert and since the kids are running around like mad they’ll get thirsty,” says Fabes.

New technology is also being utilised in the back-office with a workforce management tool combined onto a single platform with the training programmes of each member of the crew. The crew rooms also have two PCs installed that provide the ability for work scheduling, online learning, and access to Facebook.

These various initiatives have resulted in sales rising by 18% and Fabes confirmed four or five more stores will be added to the trial. “The UK is the trial country but it’s being developed for global use. Consumers are connected and we’ve got to be prepared for this,” he suggests.

(Source: Glynn Davis www.theretailbulletin.com)

The very first South Yorkshire Business Conference is due to take place in Barnsley on 24th February 2012.  This ground breaking event is being organised jointly by all the Chambers of Commerce in the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership.

The half-day conference will see the region’s businesses, politicians and partner organisations descend on Barnsley Metrodome to set the regional agenda of priorities for 2012.

The keynote speaker will be The Right Honourable John Bercow MP, Speaker of the House of Commons.

The interactive conference will also feature:

Informative case studies relating to the three headline themes – Skills for Growth, Infrastructure for Growth and Conditions for Growth.

Interactive panel discussions featuring regional MPs, SYPTE, Senior Local Authority Officers, Council Leaders and the British Chamber of Commerce.

The cost of the highly informative event is only £20, which includes lunch and ample networking opportunities with the region’s leading businesses, politicians and partner organisations.

Contact lee.wilkinson@brchamber.co.uk or telephone 0844 2253 213 to book your place.

Whilst most of the major contracts for the Olympic and Paralympic Games have been awarded there are still many others for ‘peripheral’ services which can be obtained.

There are already 13 International Teams and 6 GB teams who are basing themsleves in Yorkshire during the games period.  These  teams will want many products and services while they are here.  This is NOT “darn sarth” but right here in Yorkshire so, with an estimated spend of £3M, it’s time to get into action and see just how much of it you can get.

In addition there is the torch relay and whilst it is passing through the area at many points it is also spending several nights in regional locations.  Obviously these people will also need many different types of goods and services, can you supply any?

To obtain details of what is available and how you can tender for work you need to log on to the various web sites and see what you can do.  The main site for all major contracts is www.comepetefor.com.  However, locally this work is being managed by Yorkshire Gold Business Club and their contact is www.ygbc.co.uk.  Finally London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) also have a web site at www.london2012.com/business-network

Now is the time for you to get on to those web sites and get yourself a slice of the action.  “If we do nowt we’ll get nowt” so don’t lose an opportunity to get some contracts for yourselves.  Who knows, a little work now and getting a good reputation from the right people could lead to lots more work in the future!

James Hudson Taylor was a Christian who left Barnsley in the 19th Century and sailed to China.  Whilst there he opened 125 schools and converted 18,000 people to Christianity.  Since then it has been estimated that 70 million Chinese are now Christians as a result of his work.  Over recent years we have had a few Chinese Christians visit Barnsley to see the town where he came from but it is becoming clear that this interest is growing as more and more Chinese are visiting this country.  With the Chinese Olympic Team based in Leeds it is also possible that some of those will also want to visit Barnsley.

Clearly, this missionary is someone the town can be justly proud of and in order to show visitors something of him and his life it is the intention to create a ‘Hudson Taylor Trail’ around the town with plaques showing key points of interest.

So often we forget the work of our ancestors but on this occasion a group of committed Christians have come together to make sure that on this occasion this man is never forgotten.

If we are having many Chinese visitors then there is also the opportunity for Barnsley based businesses invloved in any customer facing activities, to develop a strategy so that theses visitors can get a warm Barnsley welcome and also be encouraged to spend their money in the town.  Can you do something that links you to Hudson Taylor?