Personal and small business current account holders were asked how likely they would be to recommend their provider to a friend, relative or other business. The survey also covered the quality of online and mobile provision, branch and overdraft services and, for small businesses, the quality of the relationship management they receive.

The results show customers how their bank is ranked on quality of service and make it easier for people to compare offers. They also promote competition between providers, resulting in better experiences for all account holders. Customers who find another bank offering a better deal can use the Current Account Switch Service to help make the process of switching much simpler. This free service is available to anyone with a personal or business current account in the UK.

Results are for the period July 2022 to June 2023.

Overall, the top-ranked personal current account providers in Great Britain are:

• Monzo (1st)
• Starling Bank (2nd)
• First direct (3rd)

Overall, the bottom-ranked personal current providers in Great Britain are:

• Virgin Money (=15th)
• Royal Bank of Scotland (=15th)
• TSB (14th)

Overall, the top-ranked business current account providers in Great Britain are:

• Monzo (1st)
• Starling Bank (2nd)
• Handelsbanken (3rd)

Overall, the bottom-ranked business current account providers in Great Britain are:

• HSBC UK (15th)
• The Co-operative Bank (14th)
• Virgin Money (13th)

Landlords have a legal obligation to keep their rented property in good condition, and any gas or electrical systems must meet specified safety standards.

There are different rules for making repairs in Scotland and making repairs in Northern Ireland.

When you can enter the property

You have a legal right to enter your property to inspect it or carry out repairs. You must give your tenants at least 24 hours’ notice, although immediate access may be possible in emergencies. Your tenants have the right to stay in the property during the repairs.

You are normally responsible for repairs to:

• the structure of your property
• basins, sinks, baths and other sanitary fittings
• heating and hot water systems
• anything you damage through attempting repairs

If your property is seriously damaged by a fire, flood or other similar incident, you do not have to rebuild or renovate it. However, if you do, you cannot charge your tenants for any repairs made.

Common areas

If you own a block of flats, you are usually responsible for repairing common areas, like staircases. Councils can ask landlords to fix problems in common areas, or to repair a tenant’s flat that’s been damaged by another tenant.

If the property is temporarily unfit to live in

You can ask tenants to move out during major repairs. Before this happens, you should agree in writing:

• how long the works will last
• the tenants’ right to return
• details of any alternative accommodation

You cannot repossess a property to do repairs. However, if you’re planning substantial works or want to redevelop the property, you can apply to the courts for an order for your tenants to leave. The courts are more likely to grant this if you provide alternative accommodation.

Repairs and charging rent

If the repairs are very disruptive, your tenants may be able to claim a reduction on their rent known as a ‘rent abatement’. This will depend on how much of the property is unusable.

You may have the right to increase the rent after carrying out repairs and improvements, depending on the tenancy agreement.

If there is a particular type of customer that is ideally placed to benefit from the goods or services you sell it makes sense to target any marketing activity in their direction, rather than adopting a scatter gun approach.

Take a good look at your present customers and select those that buy from you on a regular basis and seem to appreciate your company’s supplies. For example, are they:

• Easy to deal with.
• Pay on time.
• Reorder on a regular basis.
• Approachable for cross-sales.

These will be your “A” clients/customers. Once you have your list look for similarities. Are they:

• In a specific market sector.
• Is location a feature, local to your base of operations.
• Are they owner managed.

Once you have defined these characteristics you have a “prime avatar” of your ideal customer, and you can start to market to win more customers with similar characteristics.

To assist with these marketing efforts, approach your present “A” list and ask for testimonials. These are likely to resonate with prospects you approach.

As you are fishing for customers in a pond alive with many different types, many of which you may not want as customers, it makes sense to get clear on who your ideal customer is and concentrate your marketing activity in their direction.

Amazon has offered to change the way it treats third-party sellers using its Marketplace platform in the UK, by submitting proposed commitments to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in response to competition concerns it raised with the technology giant.

The CMA considers that these commitments – if accepted – will ensure third-party sellers’ product offers have a fair chance of being prominently displayed to customers in the ‘Buy Box’ on a product page when they are competing against Amazon’s own product offers. The commitments also aim to prevent Amazon from using data that it obtains from third-party sellers to give itself an unfair competitive advantage.

The CMA launched an investigation in July 2022 into concerns that Amazon was abusing its position as the UK’s leading online retail platform by giving an unfair advantage to its own retail business over competing sellers that use Amazon Marketplace, or to sellers that use Amazon’s own warehousing and delivery services, rather than rival organisation businesses.

The CMA’s preliminary view is that the offer from Amazon addresses its competition concerns, and the CMA is now consulting on the commitments put forward before deciding whether to accept them.

The commitments offered propose to:

• Ensure Amazon does not use rival sellers’ Marketplace data to gain an unfair advantage over other sellers. This follows concerns that Amazon’s access to commercially sensitive data relating to third-party sellers helped its retail business to decide which products to sell, manage stock levels for those products, set prices and make other important commercial decisions.
• Guarantee all product offers are treated equally when Amazon decides which will be featured in the ‘Buy Box’. This relates to concerns that products being offered by third-party sellers were less likely to appear in the Buy Box than similar offers from either Amazon’s own retail business or third-party sellers that use Amazon’s delivery services.
• Allow third-party businesses using Marketplace to negotiate their own rates directly with independent providers of Prime delivery services so that customers can benefit from lower delivery costs where better rates are negotiated.
• Require Amazon to appoint an independent trustee who will monitor the company’s compliance with these commitments. The CMA will have a direct say in this appointment, ensuring they have the necessary skills and expertise for the job.

It was announced as part of the Spring Budget 2023 measures that the government would establish twelve Investment Zones across the UK, subject to successful proposals. South Yorkshire has now been named as the first of the UK Investment Zones.

These Investment Zones are designed to encourage investment and new economic activity, supporting growth and jobs. The Investment Zones will benefit from lower taxes and more relaxed planning frameworks to encourage rapid development and business investment.

The new Investment Zone in South Yorkshire will specifically focus on Advanced Manufacturing. Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster and Barnsley all stand to benefit from an estimated 8,000 new jobs and £1.2 billion of private funding by 2030, which this Investment Zone will help to deliver. Boeing, Spirit AeroSystems, Loop Technology and the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) have partnered to support the first investment worth over £80 million.

The government is also working with the devolved administrations and local partners to deliver this opportunity to drive local growth in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There will be two Investment Zones in Scotland, with Glasgow City Region and North East of Scotland the most likely areas to host Investment Zones. Further information on Investment Zones in Wales and Northern Ireland is pending.

A simple dictionary definition of cost of living would probably say something like:

The level of prices relating to a range of everyday items…

The problem is, the price inflation for food, or fuel for your car, or heating costs will vary. Although inflation is quoted as just under 9% in the UK, this disguises the true rate of cost increases in different sectors. For example:

• Petrol and diesel prices were much higher in 2022 that currently. In which case prices in this area have reduced.
• In the year to May 2023, food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by 18.4%, much higher than the current rate of published inflation.
• According to the Office of National Statistics energy prices rose 8.1% in the year to May 2023. However, energy price caps will have artificially held down price increase due to government interventions.

To further complicate the issue, inflation is measured in two ways:

• CPI – the Consumer Price Index, and
• RPI – the Retail Prices Index

The Retail Prices Index (RPI) is no longer classified as a National Statistic because the way it is calculated does not meet international standards.

In general terms, when the press discuss inflation, the measure they are quoting is the CPI. The CPI inflation rate in May 2023 was 8.7%, the same as in April 2023.

The other factor that is entering the equation on this topic is interest rates. The Bank of England only has one weapon in its armoury to bring down inflation and that is to increase interest rates to dampen demand.

As rates increase, the cost of repaying loans – particularly mortgages – is increasing. Stories abound of monthly repayments doubling in recent weeks.

And so, care should be taken when interpreting price increases. The CPI hides a wealth of price increases and decreases that are no where near 8.7%.

Business owners are not exempt from the effects of inflation, but unlike waged individuals, they may have more options to increase cash flow. Here’s a few ideas you may like to consider:

• If you have slow-moving or dormant stock sitting on your storage racks, consider a sale. Anything you can convert into cash will have a positive impact on cashflow.
• Are staff fully utilised? If not, could you offer short-term placements via employment agencies? Failing this option, do you need to consider redundancies?
• Do you have unused storage or production space that you could rent for short periods?
• Are your company vehicles fully utilised? Could they be hired to other firms on short-term hire contracts?

Wage earners will have other options to increase their monthly cash flow. For example:

• Taking on a second job, albeit part-time.
• Make a list of all those unwanted items languishing, unused, in your loft, outhouse or storage spaces and consider selling on E-Bay or similar platform.
• Could you let out your drive 9am to 5pm to workers unable to find regular parking spots in your area?
• Do you have underutilised equipment that you could hire out?

And earning £1,000 or under in a tax year from either renting out part of your home or selling/hiring under-utilised assets is tax free.

And finally, if you have spare rooms in your home, you may be able to rent these tax-free as long as annual rents received do not exceed £7,500 and you are resident in the same building.

If you would like to expand on any of these ideas, be happy to discuss your options. Please call.

Copyright protects your work and stops others from using it without your permission.

You get copyright protection automatically – you don’t have to apply or pay a fee. There isn’t a register of copyright works in the UK.

You automatically get copyright protection when you create:

• original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work, including illustration and photography
• original non-literary written work, such as software, web content and databases
• sound and music recordings
• film and television recordings
• broadcasts
• the layout of published editions of written, dramatic and musical works

You can mark your work with the copyright symbol (©), your name and the year of creation. Whether you mark the work or not doesn’t affect the level of protection you have.

Copyright prevents people from:

• copying your work
• distributing copies of it, whether free of charge or for sale
• renting or lending copies of your work
• performing, showing or playing your work in public
• making an adaptation of your work
• putting it on the internet

Having the right type of intellectual property protection helps you stop people stealing or copying:

• the names of your products or brands;
• your inventions;
• the design or look of your products; and
• things you write, make or produce.

Copyright, patents, designs and trademarks are all types of intellectual property protection. You get some types of protection automatically, others you have to apply for.

You own intellectual property if you:

• created it (and it meets the requirements for copyright, a patent or a design);
• bought intellectual property rights from the creator or a previous owner; and
• have a brand that could be a trademark, for example, a well-known product name.

Intellectual property can have more than one owner, belong to people or businesses, and be sold or transferred.

If you have concerns that your ideas or business brands are vulnerable contact a professional patent or trademark attorney.

From 14 June 2023, the latest set of changes mandated by the Charities Acts 2022 came into force.

Changes now in place include simplified legal requirements that charities must comply with before selling, transferring or leasing land, and new statutory powers to enable:

• Charities to spend, in certain circumstances, a proportion or all of their permanent endowment fund where the market value of the fund is (£25,000 or less) without Commission authorisation.
• Charities to borrow, in certain circumstances, up to 25% of the value of their permanent endowment fund without Commission authorisation.
• Charities that have opted into a total return approach to investment to use permanent endowment to make social investments with a negative or uncertain financial return, provided any losses are offset by other gains.
• The Commission to direct a charity to stop using a working name if it is too similar to another charity’s name or is offensive or misleading.
• The Commission to delay registration of a charity with an unsuitable name or delay entry of a new unsuitable name onto the Register of Charities. Working with the principal regulator, the Commission can also use these naming powers on exempt charities.

The Director of Legal & Accounting Services at the Charity Commission said:

“The latest changes introduced by the Charities Act 2022 give the charities we regulate more flexibility and greater powers. These are positive changes that will impact a significant number of charities, so it is important all organisations, big or small, take the time to check what this means for them. This is especially important if they are looking, for example, to dispose of land. We have updated our guidance to help trustees understand the changes, and our contact centre is open to those who need further support.”