A scaffolding business has been fined for health and safety breaches after a worker fell more than 10 metres through a roof.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Mark Wilson, trading as MWS Scaffolding Services, in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, after uncovering breaches of health and safety law on a site in Waltham Forest, north east London.

Mr Wilson was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay costs of £2,566.80 at City of London Magistrates' Court after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

Administrators at off-license group First Quench have announced they're closing 381 of the company's stores and cutting 2,000 jobs after negotiations to find a new buyer collapsed.  First Quench owns a number of well-known high street chains, including Threshers, Wine Rack, Haddows, Victoria Wine and Bottoms Up.

However, Richard Fleming,of administrators KPMG, is still hopeful First Quench can shift "a significant number" of its remaining stores as "going concerns."  The Guardian reports EFB Retail may be one of the interested parties.  Supermarket chains may also be interested in cherry-picking sites.

"Unfortunately there was not sufficient interest in the 381 stores as part of the going concern sale, so we have no option but to close them," Fleming said.

Redundancy rights

If you've been made redundant recently, or you're worried about being made redundant, you should know you have a number of legal rights, including:

The Corporation Tax Bill and the Taxation (International and Other Provisions) Bill have been published.  These Bills are the sixth and seventh produced by the Tax Law Rewrite project, which has rewritten a big chunk of UK tax law in recent years to make it clearer and easier to use. 

The Corporation Tax Bill (the second of two dealing with corporation tax) substantially completes the rewrite of the corporation tax code.  It includes provisions about losses and gifts to charities, various reliefs such as group relief, distributions, particular types of companies and activities, avoidance, and definitions.

The Taxation (International and Other Provisions) Bill includes provisions about double taxation relief, transfer pricing, advance pricing agreements and tax arbitrage.  It also relocates and where appropriate rewrites some provisions which would otherwise have been left unhelpfully in the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 or one of the Finance Acts.

A tough new compulsory licensing scheme designed to rid England, Wales and Northern Ireland of rogue wheel clampers, has been set out in the Crime and Security Bill.

Proposals within the Bill will make it mandatory for all wheel clamping businesses to be licensed under the terms of a strict code of conduct.  The code will include a cap on fines, time limits on towing cars unreasonably quickly after being clamped and set out clear instructions for putting up signs warning drivers that clamping takes place.

Ministers are also looking to introduce an independent appeals process for motorists who feel unfairly penalised by firms and their employees.

Any company which breaches the terms of their licence could lose their right to practise and face up to five years in prison or a substantial fine.

There was another twist in Jordan Wimmer's £4 million constructive dismissal case against Nomos Capital founder Mark Lowe this week, as the defendant took the stand.  Lowe admitted to sending sexually explicit emails to female employees and calling Wimmer a "dumb blonde" and "decorative"; he also said he had a "marked preference" for female sales staff, which he justified as "pure commercial sense."  Wimmer also produced one email in which Lowe asked her whether an internship candidate was "cute" or "blonde."

But Lowe rejected Wimmer's claims that he'd hired escorts, who accompanied him to business meetings, and a hitman to kill her.  He also denied accusations that he made sexual advances towards Wimmer, saying he always treated her "in a gentlemanly way."

1. Stronger financial regulation and corporate governance

• Creates a new Council for Financial Stability, chaired by the Chancellor and including the Chair of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Governor of the Bank of England, to focus on managing systemic risk and protecting financial stability, both in the UK and internationally.
  
  
• Establishes a new financial stability objective for the FSA, enabling it to place greater emphasis on monitoring, assessing and mitigating macro-prudential risks in its supervisory and regulatory approach.
  
  
• Hands enhanced power to the FSA by:

- extending the Authority's rule-making powers to accomplish any of its objectives (not just consumer protection as at present);

- extending its information-gathering powers to non-regulated firms (including hedge funds), where information is relevant to financial stability;

- strengthening its powers to take action where firms and individuals are guilty of misconduct;

- allowing it to restrict short selling and to require disclosure of short selling.

• Includes the following provisions on remuneration:

- FSA handed task of coming up with binding rules to implement the G20 pay agreement;

- Hands FSA power to void any contract that contravenes said rules and to recover any payments made under contracts that breach rules;

- Ends multi-year guaranteed bonuses, or large bonuses paid out as a cash lump sum at year-end, and all bonuses subject to clawback.

Earlier this year, an interesting case came before the Court of Appeal concerning independent contractors and sham contracts.  Miklos Szilagyi sued a company called Protectacoat Firthglow Ltd (PF).

PF specialises in the renovation of external walls and Szilagyi had worked for the company as an installer.  After a short period of training, he was told to find an assistant to work with him.  He was then asked to sign two documents: the first document was a 'partnership agreement' between Szilagyi and his assistant; the second was a services agreement between the 'partnership' and PF.

So far so good, except:

Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released provisional estimates of the public finances showing that in October 2009 the public sector had:

• a current budget deficit of £7.7 billion;
  
  
• net borrowing of £11.4 billion; &
  
  
• at the end of October, net debt was £829.7 billion, equivalent to 59.2% of gross domestic product.

UK "skint as a country"

On 1st January, the UK's VAT holiday will end as the tax rate returns to 17.5% from 15%.

M&S chairman Stuart Rose says we should expect another increase next year as the Government looks for ways to pay off the deficit.  "We are skint as a country," he said.  "The Treasury needs revenue so I would not rule it out ... this Government and the future Government have got to make some hard decisions about refilling the coffers".

Retailers, already squealing about the return to a 17.5% VAT rate, fear a further increase would kill off the recovery before it's begun. 

But the Guardian estimates a VAT increase to 20% would raise an additional £12 billion a year for the public purse.  And levying VAT on food - which is currently exempt - albeit at a lower rate of 5%, would bring in another £3.5 billion a year.

According to the Guardian, there's a good chance General Motors' decision last week to cancel the sale of Opel/Vauxhall to the Canadian Magna consortium will result in fewer UK redundancies.

Peter Mandelson met with GM Europe's acting chief executive Nick Reilly in London this week.  Reilly told him Vauxhall workers had a "good future" under GM ownership.

Unite the union issued ballot papers for potential industrial action to its 12,000-strong cabin crew membership within British Airways this week.

The ballot papers were sent on the same day BA began to impose far-reaching changes to cabin crew working practices, changes which Unite believes are not only unworkable but also contractual - and so must be negotiated, not imposed.

The Government's open data strategy gained increased momentum this week as it was announced the public will have more access to Ordnance Survey maps from next year.

Making local and national government data freely available and accessible provides a number of social and economic benefits:

1. Facilitates innovation and improvement in public services by putting information, and therefore power, in the hands of the electorate and service providers.
   
   
2. Increases transparency and democratic accountability.
   
   
3. Enables people to re-use the data in different and more imaginative ways than may have originally been intended.  (Estimates suggest that this could generate as much as a billion pounds for the UK economy.)
   
   
4. Makes people feel more connected to their community by giving them the tools to demand action on issues that matter.  For example, releasing council records in re-usable form would mean that citizens can find everything from the council accounts to the number of streetlights and community wardens, to when the rubbish is collected and the hedges trimmed.

A cross-government action plan to improve the health of offenders was launched yesterday by Care Services Minister Phil Hope.  The action plan implements many of the recommendations in Lord Bradley's study on people with mental health and learning disabilities in the criminal justice system, namely:

1. Ensure prison inmates have access to the same levels of health care as the general population;
   
2. Develop 'care pathways' to improve continuity of care, enhance health and social care provision, and contribute to the delivery of justice;
   
3. Train staff across the criminal justice system to identify health issues and share information so individuals receive help.

The  plan has three overarching goals: (1) to protect the public; (2) reduce health inequalities; and (3) cut levels of re-offending.

Employers, unions and the government joined forces yesterday to promote new guidance on preventing harassment and violence in the workplace.

The guidance, which follows a Europe-wide agreement between employers' organisations and unions, aims to give practical help and support to firms and their employees.

Harassment and violence is unacceptable behaviour by one or more individuals and can take many different forms, some of which may be more easy to identify than others:

• Workplace harassment: occurs when someone is repeatedly and deliberately abused, threatened and/or humiliated in circumstances relating to work.
  
  
• Workplace violence: occurs when one or more workers or managers is assaulted in circumstances relating to work.

Victims may suffer workplace harassment and/or violence from a number of sources, including managers, workers, service users and/or members of the public, with the purpose or effect of violating their dignity, affecting their health and/or creating a hostile work environment.

The majority of business rates tax bills - one million in total - will fall next year following revaluation, the Government has confirmed. 

Revaluation ensures the business rates each enterprise pays is fair and reflects changes in relative property values over time.

As a result of revaluation, 60% of business rates payers will see falls in their tax bills next year.  For the minority paying more, the Government has put in place a £2 billion relief scheme self funded by businesses that will limit and phase in increases.

Overall, as a result of revaluation and the relief arrangements, one million business properties will see an average decrease in the tax bills of £770 in 2010/11.

To reduce bureaucracy for small businesses and billing authorities, the Government has also announced that organisations do not need to re-apply for small business rate relief at revaluation, a move welcomed by the Federation of Small Businesses.

Other measures introduced by the Government to support businesses include enabling businesses to delay payment of corporation tax, VAT and other taxes; the Enterprise Finance Guarantee, helping businesses applying for bank loans; a £75million Capital for Enterprise Fund; Regional Loan Transition Funds from Regional Development Agencies; free business health checks; and a commitment from Government to pay suppliers within 10 days.