Financial and Professional Services

Wales will complete the move to alert level 0 on 28 January 2022, First Minister Mark Drakeford confirmed today, unless the public health situation changes for the worse. He said the phased plan to gradually relax the alert level 2 measures and move back to alert level 0 will continue. From Friday 21 January 2022, Wales will move to alert level 0 for all outdoor activities. This means: Crowds will be able to return to...

Acas works with millions of employers and employees every year to improve workplace relationships. Acas provides free, confidential advice to employers of all sizes and across all industries who have questions about employment rules, the law, employer duty of care and HR policies and procedures. Call the Acas helpline on 0300 123 1100, Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Or send a private message to @acasorguk on Facebook messenger. Find out more about contacting Acas.

Help to Grow: Digital is a new UK-wide scheme to help small and medium size businesses (SMEs) adopt digital technologies that are proven to increase their productivity. The scheme will offer SMEs free and impartial advice on how technology can help their business. An online platform will help them to: identify their digital technology needs assess technology purchasing options implement new technologies in their operations The scheme will also offer eligible SMEs a grant token...

If you’re an employer with fewer than 250 employees, and you’ve paid Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to your employees for absences linked to coronavirus-related sickness or self-isolation, you could be eligible for support. You will receive repayments at the relevant standard rate of SSP that you paid to your current or former employees for any eligible periods of sickness starting on or after 21 December 2021. You will be able to reclaim the costs for...

Local Authorities will deliver a discretionary fund for businesses ineligible for Non Domestic Rates support with a turnover of less than £85,000 via a short application process. Sole traders, freelancers and taxi drivers will be able to apply for £1,000 and businesses that employ people can apply for £2,000. This funding is also available to freelancers in the creative sectors. For further information visit Emergency Business Fund | Business Wales (gov.wales)

Under the Pensions Act 2008, every employer in the UK must put certain staff into a workplace pension scheme and contribute towards it. This is called 'automatic enrolment'. If you employ at least one person you are an employer and you have certain legal duties. It's important that you understand what to do and by when, so you can meet your automatic enrolment duties on time. Your legal duties begin on the day your first...

What is the Police CyberAlarm? The Police CyberAlarm is a free tool to help your business understand and monitor malicious cyber activity. Police CyberAlarm acts as a “CCTV camera” monitoring the traffic seen by your businesses’ connection to the internet. It will detect and provide regular reports of suspected malicious activity, enabling your business to minimise your vulnerabilities. Once you become a Police CyberAlarm member, you install a ‘CyberAlarm Virtual Server’ on your system, which...

First Minister, Mark Drakeford MS We can now look more confidently to the future and plan to start gradually removing the alert level two restrictions. We are today setting out a plan to return to alert level zero. As we have done previously, we will start with relaxing protections outdoors. We will make one immediate change – from tomorrow (15 January 2022), the number of people who can be present at outdoor events will rise...

Minister for Climate Change Julie James is urging anyone who has fallen behind in paying rent because of the pandemic to contact their local authority to find out if they can receive financial help to avoid eviction. The call is in a bid to keep people in their homes and close to their social networks to avoid the devastating impact that homelessness can wreak on physical, mental and social wellbeing. First announced in July last...

Local Authorities will be delivering a Non Domestic Rates (NDR) linked grant fund to non-essential retail, hospitality, leisure and tourism businesses (NERHLT). There will not be an application process for this element however in order to receive payment businesses will be required to register with their local authority to confirm their details. NDR linked grants will then be paid directly to rate payers as follows: NERHLT businesses in receipt of Small Business Rate Relief (SBRR)...