Hot Business News Today

Hot Business News Today

Rishi Sunak gives small businesses £2000 grants for young trainees

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Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
UPDATED: Rishi Sunak will give small businesses £2000 grants per trainee if they take on young people for training schemes.
The scheme, which was announced today (Wednesday) as part of the chancellor’s economic Summer Statement, will throw ens of thousands of young people a lifebelt against the coming tsunami of post Covid-19 unemployment.
The Bank of England has predicted that unemployment will rise to 10 per cent this year, as employees are weaned off the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme from August.
>See also: IR35 freelance tax changes will go ahead in April 2021 – are you ready?
Small businesses that offer training for young people aged between 16 and 24 will be given cash “bonuses” of grants worth £2000 per youth up to a maximum of £10,000 per firm.
This unpaid on-the-job training is seen as a gateway to an apprenticeship and, ultimately, full-time work.
The £111m scheme is the first-time small businesses will receive direct government subsidies for taking on trainees.
A Treasury spokesman said businesses would get a £2000 bonus payment “for every trainee they offer a work experience placement to”, and employers who were “new to providing trainees with work experience will also be eligible for the

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Why Britain’s SMEs need a proper small business bank

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Originally written by Greg Taylor on Small Business
The UK banking system is currently failing small businesses.
In theory we do have a solution, the British Business Bank (BBB), but it’s not fit for purpose and isn’t even a real bank – just a platform for connecting lenders to SMEs. As we look to reboot the UK economy, the government needs to take radical action to ensure small businesses aren’t denied funding by a banking system which doesn’t work for them.
At present SMEs looking for funding face a perfect storm. Blanket credit policies from the banks, the fact that some SMEs are overleveraged due to the CBILS borrowing they needed to survive the pandemic, issues with liquidity within many alternative peer-to-peer lenders, and the banks’ current lack of lending appetite, have all combined to make present circumstances very tough for SMEs. They need help urgently and the best solution would be to establish a new government-backed bank to rival the main high street and investment banks and to replace the British Business Bank.
>See also: British Business Bank increases small business support by over a quarter in the past year
The British Business Bank doesn’t perform a banking role but simply helps introduce other

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Hot Business News Today

7 actions to improve your company’s cyber security while working remotely

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Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
Working remotely has become a fixture during COVID-19 and is likely to become more common in business once the lockdown has passed.
Cyber security is now all the more important for you and your employees. Research from DSA Connect shows that since working from home, 8 per cent of people have increased access to confidential data compared with the 6 per cent who say they have less.
It seems that companies are aware of the risks. Cyber security services provider, Nexor, says that UK Google searches for ‘cyber defense’ [sic] went up by 126 per cent between January and March 2020. That’s up 116 per cent from March 2019. Searches for ‘cyber security services’ rose by 44 per cent and ‘how to install a VPN’ increased by 40 per cent.
However, Kaspersky says that only a third (34 per cent) of small businesses are keeping employees updated on security requirements for personal devices. This can be mirrored in staff conduct. Research from Tessian shows that 52 per cent of workers feel they can get away with riskier behaviour when they work remotely.
It’s not the same case for everyone. Normally cyber security is in the hands of

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