Fact Service January 2013

Issue 4 (31/01/2013) - Final salary scheme closures accelerate; Apprenticeships - government response; Fears over triple-dip recession for UK; Pay rises treading water at 2.1%; Shrewsbury 24 - sign up for justice; European unions must fight Cameron; Pay freeze for bosses, pay cut for staff

Issue 3 (24/01/2013) - Blacklisting scandal gets worse; Average earnings; Unemployment down; Poor careers advice - a perennial problem; Coalition ups attack on workers' rights; Tribunal claims rise

Issue 2 (17/01/2013) - Factory output down; RPI inflation rebounds at end of year; Fall in real value of workers' earnings; Guidance on public sector equality duty; European court rules on discrimination; Traineeships proposed by coalition; Pay tensions in 2013

Issue 1 (10/01/2013) - No change to inflation calculation; Consultation period for redundancies cut; Balance of payments deficit shrinks; Employers may cut pension contributions; Inflation dips to 3%; Last year was bad one for NHS in England; Priorities for 2013

Issue 4

Final salary scheme closures accelerate (568 words)

Final salary pensions in the private sector have closed their doors to new staff at the fastest rate on record, an annual survey from the National ...
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Apprenticeships — government response (285 words)

The government’s response to the Business, Innovation and Skills select committee report on apprenticeships has met with a similarly lukewarm ...
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Fears over triple-dip recession for UK (316 words)

The UK economy shrank in the last three months of 2012, fuelling fears that the economy could be heading for what could be a triple-dip recession. ...
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Pay rises treading water at 2.1% (275 words)

Pay settlements averaged out at a 2.1% rise in the three months to December, according to the latest figures from the Labour Research Department’s ...
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Shrewsbury 24 — sign up for justice (296 words)

The TUC has given its full backing to the Shrewsbury 24 campaign in its quest to right a 40-year-old wrong which — alongside the ban imposed on ...
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European unions must fight Cameron (355 words)

The TUC is looking to enlist the help of unions across Europe to resist David Cameron’s attempt to “repatriate” workers’ rights. ...
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Pay freeze for bosses, pay cut for staff (228 words)

Hundreds of staff at Salford City Council will lose up to £2,100 a year under a proposed pay review — but bosses will only have their pay frozen. ...
Open access

Issue 3

Blacklisting scandal gets worse (252 words)

Labour MPs have demanded a full-scale investigation into damning new evidence that the police and security services have been deeply involved in ...
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Average earnings (512 words)

Average weekly earnings for the whole economy posted a provisional annual rise of 1.3% in November, the same rise as the previous month. ...
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Unemployment down (670 words)

Unemployment was down on both counts, according to official figures. ...
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Poor careers advice — a perennial problem (338 words)

More than half (53%) of employers believe that young people receive inadequate careers advice and almost two-thirds (63%) said that the young people ...
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Coalition ups attack on workers' rights (303 words)

The coalition government is to go ahead and cap unfair dismissal compensation awarded by employment tribunals at one year’s salary. However, the ...
Subscribers only

Tribunal claims rise (123 words)

The number of claims received by the employment tribunal in July to September 2012 was 45,300 – a 13% rise on the same period of 2011. ...
Open access

Issue 2

Factory output down (172 words)

There was little good news on the economy as official figures showed manufacturing shrank by 0.7% in the three months to November compared with the ...
Open access

RPI inflation rebounds at end of year (584 words)

Retail price inflation was up at the end of 2012, while consumer price inflation remained unchanged, the latest figures from the Office for National ...
Subscribers only

Fall in real value of workers' earnings (307 words)

The average worker will lose around £6,000 by 2014 as a result of wages failing to keep pace with rising prices, according to new TUC analysis ...
Subscribers only

Guidance on public sector equality duty (259 words)

The public sector equality duty (PSED) was established under the 2010 Equality Act, whereby public authorities encourage good relations, promote ...
Subscribers only

European court rules on discrimination (545 words)

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has given its ruling in the cases of four UK Christians who claimed to have suffered workplace ...
Subscribers only

Traineeships proposed by coalition (228 words)

Plans for a new programme to equip young people with the skills they need to compete for apprenticeships and other jobs have been set out by skills ...
Open access

Pay tensions in 2013 (144 words)

Pay will continue to cause tension as austerity measures continue, John Taylor, chief executive of the conciliation and arbitration service Acas, ...
Open access

Issue 1

No change to inflation calculation (200 words)

There will be no change to the way the Retail Prices Index (RPI) is calculated, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has decided. Instead, a new ...
Open access

Consultation period for redundancies cut (372 words)

Large-scale collective redundancies will no longer require a 90-day minimum consultation phase, after the coalition government announced its ...
Subscribers only

Balance of payments deficit shrinks (240 words)

The deficit on the UK current account was cut to £12.8 billion in the third quarter of 2012 from a revised deficit of £17.4 billion for the ...
Open access

Employers may cut pensions contributions (175 words)

Nearly one in three employers has considered reducing contribution levels to defined contribution (DC) pension schemes that are used for ...
Open access

Inflation dips to 3% (448 words)

The rate of inflation was down on one measure and unchanged on the other main measure, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics ...
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Last year was bad one for the NHS in England (568 words)

2012 will go down as a cataclysmic year in the history of the health service in England, according to Alex Nunns of the NHS Support Federation. It ...
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Priorities for 2013 (313 words)

Frances O’Grady has set out the campaigning priorities for the TUC in 2013 as she took up the post of general secretary. ...
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