Time to bring our roads into the market economy: A bold vision for better transport December 1, 2011 IMAGINE a private utility that charged customers the same regardless of the service it provided. Imagine it raises £32bn in revenue per annum from those customers, but spends less than a third of it on maintaining and upgrading its assets. Everyone depends on its service, yet it is unreliable, frequently overwhelmed by demand and in [...]
The EC proposals for audit reform: A costly mistake December 1, 2011 THE European Commission has pulled off some feat with its proposals for audit market reform this week. It has united businesses, investors, the Big Four (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers) and even on some points emerging and mid-sized auditors in their criticism of the proposals. How? Because the measures the Commission proposes won’t [...]
Looking the other way on the lip of the abyss December 1, 2011 WE ARE approaching an economic event horizon. “Almost anything could happen in the next few months,” says Paul Tucker, deputy governor of the Bank of England, advising banks to prepare to withstand the worst. The exceptional coordinated action of central banks on Wednesday has been widely seen not just as offering temporary relief to the [...]
RAPID RESPONSES December 1, 2011 Criticism, audited I welcome Mario Cientanni’s support for our proposals to increase audit exemptions [Red tape around audit is proving hard to untangle, yesterday]. I don’t agree that banks will continue to require audits as a condition of borrowing, and the British Bankers Association backs this up. We realise that not all companies will wish [...]
Rebuilding UK infrastructure as an engine for growth is a task for private companies November 30, 2011 IN TUESDAY’S Autumn Statement, the chancellor committed an additional £25bn in public spending on infrastructure over the next three years. The importance of this promise isn’t in the Keynesian speed of the payback in employment (in fact modern road and rail infrastructure has long lead-in times), but in the significant benefits of great infrastructure in [...]
Red tape around audit is proving hard to untangle November 30, 2011 THE Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has published proposals to reduce financial reporting requirements for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and subsidiaries. EU rules mean that to classify as small for accounting purposes, a company must comply with two out of three criteria: gross assets of no more than £3.26m; turnover of no [...]
The unions are holding back better pay deals November 30, 2011 IT MIGHT have been the worst general strike for a generation, but it clearly failed to take off. Apart from the closure of my children’s school, and the vast army of police protecting parliament, I honestly didn’t notice much impact from it. As the Prime Minister said, in the end it felt a bit of [...]
RAPID RESPONSES November 30, 2011 Called out on pay Allister Heath suggests several reforms for pay in his recent editor’s letter [Rights and wrongs of boardroom pay, last Wednesday]. Among them, he argues that in his proposed system “pay would be linked very closely to a shareholder value and would go down as well as up.” However, he fails to [...]
Pride before a fall: Osborne looked to special interests, not the UK’s perilous state November 29, 2011 THE Autumn Statement showed that George Osborne has failed to grasp the gravity of the economic crisis facing the UK. Urgent action was needed to brace the economy for double-dip recession and the fallout from the euro crisis. Instead, the chancellor announced a big increase in government borrowing, together with a series of measures that, [...]
The challenge to banks: Who will lead on service? November 29, 2011 WITH Virgin Money’s purchase of Northern Rock, hopes have been raised of a customer service revolution in the UK’s retail banking sector. Someone certainly needs to step up to the plate. Who dares to be different for the customer? That is the challenge waiting to be met. And it can be. The malaise is deep. [...]