Monthly Archives: November 2013

SRA plans to waive £80 fee for LPC students

Students enrolling on a legal practice course (LPC) next September will no longer have to pay the Solicitors Regulation Authority an £80 registration fee – a move which could cost the SRA £680,000 per year.

The proposal to end the formal registration process, due for to be approved tomorrow, follows the SRA’s red-tape cutting initiative announced earlier this year. It appears in the SRA’s Training for Tomorrow: Regulations Review consultation, part of an immediate review into regulatory requirements for education and training.

The regulator says that only 3% of the 9,000 students it enrols each year require an assessment of suitability and that ‘a more targeted, proportionate and efficient way of identifying character and suitability issues’ should replace the current process.

If approved, formal registration will be replaced by a requirement for students to notify the regulator that the period of training has commenced and when it is expected to conclude.

Loss in income from registration fees would be offset by administrative savings, the SRA said.

The SRA is not at this stage changing the requirements to complete an academic course and an LPC. Proposals to overhaul this route will not come into force until 2017/2018 at the earliest, the regulator said in [...]

November 27th, 2013|Industry News|

Unemployment falls to three year low – but more people than ever are working part-time

Today’s figures show almost 30 million people are in employment, but a record number are working part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs.

The number of people in work has reached an all-time high of almost 30 million, but a record number are working part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs.

Today’s figures showed the employment total is the highest since records began in 1971, with a huge increase of 177,000 between the three months to June and the quarter to September.

At the same time, unemployment fell by 48,000 to 2.47 million, the lowest since the spring of 2011.

The number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance was cut for the 12th month in a row in October, down by 41,700 to 1.31 million, the lowest for almost five years.

The number of people classed as economically inactive, including those looking after a sick relative, or people who have given up looking for work, also fell – down by 69,000 to 8.92 million.

But other data from the Office for National Statistics showed 1.46 million people were working part-time because they could not find a full-time job, an increase of 24,000 over the quarter, and the highest figure since records began in 1992.

Almost a [...]

November 13th, 2013|Industry News|

HMRC pledges new crackdown on employers not paying minimum wage

Letters will warn suspected firms of being ‘named and shamed’ and fined £5,000 if they use long-term unpaid interns

The government will toughen enforcement against employers who do not pay the national minimum wage today when it writes to hundreds of companies warning them they could be targeted for on-the-spot checks by the taxman.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will warn 200 businesses who have advertised placements for unpaid intern-ships that they could be “publicly named and shamed” and may be liable for a £5,000 fine if they are found to be in breach of national minimum wage laws.

The move will coincide with the launch of a national campaign to educate students about their employment rights as they enter the job market.

HMRC said that from the tax year in April, it had issued penalties to 466 employers, a significant rifrom 2009/10 when just 381 employers were issued with an HMRC penalty for not paying the minimum wage, currently at £6.31 for those aged 21 and over.

Business, Innovation and Skills minister for employment, Jo Swinson said there was “increasing concern” around unpaid internships especially in the current economic climate.

“Those occasions when you have people working for months on end for free, [...]

November 12th, 2013|Industry News|