Norman Lamont: Britons not prepared for the economic hardship ‘around the corner’ May 6, 2020 Former chancellor Lord Norman Lamont has warned the government’s furlough scheme has made people complacent and unaware of the coming economic hardship. Lamont, chancellor under Conservative Prime Minister John Major, said the scheme had lulled “people into a false sense of security” and that many do not realise “their jobs have disappeared or are about [...]
Work will change, but the office is here to stay May 5, 2020 As the coronavirus crisis continues to unfold and much of the population adjusts to remote working, many are heralding the end of the office as we know it and trumpeting working from home as the ‘new normal’. But just how viable is the prospect of an office-free future? History tells us that any vision of [...]
Real Estate: COVID-19 may permanently quarantine inflexible leases May 5, 2020 Real estate leases have long represented a point of disagreement between accountants and financial analysts. This disagreement was the primary reason why the London-headquartered International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) went separate ways in finalising lease accounting standards. Figure 1. Lease Accounting Survey Report (October 2013) For a [...]
Office Politics: Six ways the world of work will change May 4, 2020 It has been months now since knowledge-workers worldwide began working from home in response to the Covid-19 outbreak. At first, businesses were understandably focused on the short and medium-term fallout. Now that we can begin, cautiously, to anticipate a post-pandemic world, it’s time to look at the situation we’ve found ourselves in, the adjustments we’ve [...]
Back to work: The office will change forever May 4, 2020 After over a month of lockdown and with the Prime Minister announcing we are “passed the peak” of the virus, the UK is starting to consider what comes next. Understandably in such a complex situation, concrete details of phase two remain sparse. However, for many ministers, members of parliament, businesses and the public, the burning [...]
Trade minister Conor Burns resigns after ‘intimidating’ member of the public in dispute May 4, 2020 Trade minister Conor Burns has resigned after it was found he had abused his position to “intimidate a member of the public” in a dispute concerning his father. An investigation upheld a complaint that Burns, a long-standing ally of Boris Johnson, used parliamentary stationery to “deal with a purely personal family interest and that Mr [...]
British Chambers of Commerce tells PM to ramp up public spending May 3, 2020 The government must sustain high levels of public spending to help the private sector recover from the coronavirus, according to one of the country’s largest business bodies. British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) president Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith has written to Boris Johnson to say it was “a time to be bold” and that “an expansionary fiscal policy, [...]
Why RBS killed digital bank Bo only five months after launch May 1, 2020 The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has abandoned its challenger bank Bo just five months after launching it. In an already dire update on its first quarter performance today, RBS said it would “wind down Bo as a customer-facing brand” after launching it only in November. The Bo platform will instead be integrated with Mettle, [...]
The CEO Perspective: How is COVID-19 defining business purpose? May 1, 2020 When the dust settles, will business emerge having played its part and who will have stayed true to their purpose? As leaders strive to steer their corporate ships through unimaginably stormy waters, there’s an understandable need to focus solely on the management of immediate, operational and financial issues. But in the midst of uncertainty, companies [...]
Twitter posts rise in revenue despite Covid-19 advertising hit April 30, 2020 Twitter today posted a rise in revenue for the first quarter despite the lingering threat of a slowdown in advertising caused by the coronavirus crisis. The social media platform reported revenue of $808m (£646m) in the first three months of the year, up three per cent on the same period in 2019 and ahead of [...]