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news opinion
It’s all back. The football season; new television programmes rather than repeats; rain and, best of all, work ...
After a summer where email bouncebacks and ’out of office’ messages dominated your Inboxes, it’s nice to welcome people back to business – as we all prepare for Q4 2014.
Have you noticed that the summer slowdown now lasts about six weeks? Couple that with a month for Christmas, a fortnight for Easter and numerous long Bank Holiday weekends, and you would be right in thinking that the average UK business person is on a slowdown for about a quarter of the working year.
It’s hard to remember when it all started. There was a time when a fortnight in the summer, three days at Christmas and a couple at Easter constituted holiday. Nowadays, you
can’t move in town centres in August for parents having quality time with their children, even outside their prescribed annual leave.
No-one wants to begrudge people enjoying time off, or companies that have extended their holiday allowances from four to five weeks or more – particularly as the working day appears to have got longer at many businesses.
And we all recognise that many business people take their work with them, answering business emails by the pool or while queuing for the cinema.
But if you think it ’bad’ here – for many people read that as ’good’ – the UK lags a long way behind other parts of Europe when it comes to time off. In the UK we get about 28 days of annual leave and statutory public holidays. In Italy and Sweden it’s 36, and in Russia it’s 40.
So, while it can be frustrating trying to do business in the summer months in England, think how many desks must be empty in Moscow ... ?
David Murray, Publisher
£97m deal for Thames Valley Berkshire
The Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership has agreed an historic Growth Deal with the Government, which will see £96.9 million invested in Thames Valley Berkshire. £17m has been confirmed in the first year, while an indicative award of a further £79.9m has been allocated from 2016/17 onwards. The deal will create up to 17,000 jobs, 10,000 homes and leverage a further £20m in public and private investment.
The Thames Valley Berkshire Growth Deal is part of a £12 billion long-term programme to revitalise local economies. The deals are the latest example of the British economy being rebuilt from the bottom up, and sharing the benefits of the recovery around the country. Local businesses and council leaders have been
invited to open discussions immediately on the next set of projects to be funded, building on the momentum that has been established.
Steve Lamb, chairman, Thames Valley Berkshire LEP, said: “This Local Growth Fund allocation will help to stimulate growth across Thames Valley Berkshire as the funding streams from central government will unlock several key schemes across our sub region."
Further initiatives that the Growth Deal supports include better western and southern rail access to Heathrow and semi-fast Crossrail services to Reading. These, combined with the committed delivery of the M4 Smart Motorway Scheme, are all essential to sustain the UK’s ‘Tech Valley’ and position it for world-class business in the future.
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E.indd 1 THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – SEPTEMBER 2014 12/11/2013 16:12
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