Figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have revealed that the Government’s Youth Contract Scheme has currently only reached 4,690 young people. The scheme, launched last year as the Government’s flagship scheme to tackle record youth unemployment levels. Is designed to help 160,000 young unemployed people obtain jobs over three years, it offers…
Companies can take inspiration from the success of a scheme designed to improve access to museum careers for individuals from ethnic minorities and disabled people. The Diversity programme ran from 1998 to 2011 and a new report into the initiative has found 90 per cent of participants gained work in museums after they completed their…
A report by the Ernst & Young Item Club has suggested that despite the Government’s efforts to encourage lending, bank lending to businesses will hit its lowest level this year since 2006. The study says that corporate lending will fall by 4.6% to £429bn at the end of 2012, which will be the fourth consecutive…
AA Construction (London) Ltd has been prosecuted for endangering workers and the public with unsafe demolition work. While the work was being carried out in February 2011, local residents raised concerns that asbestos materials were being smashed up and littering the site. In addition they claimed that debris was dropping from height onto the road…
A worker had his lower body crushed when a stack of bales, each weighting a quarter of a tonne, collapsed on him as he sorted waste in a processing shed in Somerset. Aleksandras Fomenkouas, 40, who lived in Bridgwater at the time, suffered serious injuries in the incident on 8 September 2011 while working at…
New laws designed to recover the estimated £44 million annual cost of investigating workplace accidents could cost Scottish businesses thousands of pounds, according to Central Insurance, Scotland’s largest independent commercial insurance broker. Central Insurance said the Health and Safety Executive’s new cost recovery rules underlined the need for Scottish companies to put in place comprehensive…
A survey conducted by Cisco, the official network infrastructure provider to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, has revealed that although SMEs believe they will have to reassess certain areas of their business ahead of London 2012, nearly half of the companies surveyed have yet to make the necessary preparations. The survey asked SME…
An experienced technician at a plastic products factory in Cornwall was killed after he was crushed between the plates on a machine used to make plastic lids. Shaun O’ Dwyer, 54, originally from North Yorkshire, but living in Redruth died in the incident on 30 May 2008 at Curver UK Ltd’s factory on Cardew Industrial…
Survey reveals how workplace has changed over the past 10 years, as ILM looks at what next decade might have in store  ·        Nearly half are working longer hours, two-thirds have higher workloads and over half are more stressed ·        Mobile phones and BlackBerrys top list of inventions managers wish had never been created;…