News in Brief: Young Chartered Accountant of the Year announced; Law firm sets the pace and more

HELEN Brindley of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has won the West Yorkshire Young Chartered Accountant of the Year 2010 award, sponsored by Sharp Consultancy.

Ms Brindley won a luxury weekend for two in Florence at the Leeds Chartered Accountants Students’ Society annual dinner.

Second place was awarded to Amit Thaker from Ernst & Young and Sarah Brien from Grant Thornton was placed third.

Runners-up were Michael Hill of Zolfo Cooper, Richard Siddall of PwC and Deloitte’s Anna Palfreyman.

Ms Brindley said: “I am delighted to have received the award for Young Accountant of the Year; it was an honour to be nominated and winning the award is fantastic.”

PwC partner Ian Looker said: “We are delighted with Helen’s well deserved success. It is a great recognition of Helen’s commitment and skill and a superb win for the firm.”

Sharp Consultancy’s regional director Lee Sweeney said: “The judges were looking for individuals who had it all, great character and a demonstrable record of personal improvement. The finalists were all young accountants who went the extra mile for their employers and clients and made a real difference to the teams they worked with.”

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HULL-based Williamsons Solicitors is setting the pace in the field of clinical negligence.

Following a rigorous application process solicitor Nick Gray has been accepted on to the Law Society’s Clinical Negligence Panel.

The new accreditation makes Williamsons the city’s only legal practice to have membership of both the Law Society’s panel and the panel of solicitors for Action Against Medical Accidents (AvMA).

His accreditation comes at a crucial juncture in legislative changes to how the public is kept informed about medical accidents.

Mr Gray said: “When new NHS legislation comes into force this April all healthcare providers will be required to log every time a patient is harmed or dies while receiving treatment.

“This is all very well and good but it does not require that patients, or their next of kin, are informed – effectively keeping them in the dark.

“It’s with regret that the changes made are of such limited scope and do not require the NHS to be upfront and provide full ‘duty of candour’. In contrast, solicitors are obliged to be open if they make an error.”

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A SHEFFIELD company that develops advanced magnetic transmission systems and high-torque electrical machines has moved to larger premises.

Magnomatics has relocated to Sheffield Technology Parks following rapid growth over the last two years.

Its new base has increased the company’s laboratory and workshop space.

Magnomatics has also hired three new staff. Dr Weiya Wang, Lee Chapman and Kelly Rennie have been welcomed on board to help meet demand.

Dr Weiya joins as a senior design engineer with a PhD in electromagnetic actuation from the University of Sheffield and was previously a lecturer at Jiangsu University in China.  She has varied design experience including the design of active vehicle suspension systems.
 
Mr Chapman is a mechanical design engineer and was previously a stress analyst at BAE Systems.

Kelly Rennie has joined the team as personal assistant to the managing director and office manager.

Magnomatics recently started work on a six-figure project for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) which will see the company perform a detailed design study of a magnetically geared propulsion motor based on the Pseudo Direct Drive (PDD®) it has patented. It is envisaged that the technology will be used in integrated full electric propulsion systems within future frigates and submarines.

Managing director Chris Kirby said: “We are extremely pleased with our new facilities. The move begins an exciting new phase for the company.”