In Brief: KC; BDO; Leeds City Region apprenticeship programme

SALES success at online bathroom retailer Victoria Plumb has led to the creation of more than 30 new jobs at Hull-based outsourced contact centre provider KC Contact Centres.

Victoria Plumb is one of the UK’s best-known domestic bathroom brands and owned by Hull firm the Walker Group.

In December 2012 it awarded KC Contact Centres, part of communications provider KC, a two-year contract to handle its customer service and offline sales operations.

The original £1.1m contract led to the creation of 19 new jobs at KC’s Hull city centre site.

Since then the number of new jobs created has increased to 52 as successful advertising campaigns by Victoria Plumb have resulted in growing sales.

May, June and July this year saw the firm achieve its three best consecutive sales months since it began trading in 2001, with total sales for the period of more than £10m.

KC’s director of contact centres, Anita Pace, said that Victoria Plumb’s success is having a positive knock-on impact on the local economy.

“Victoria Plumb’s success is good news for Hull generally,” she said.

“By choosing a local company to look after its customer service, Victoria Plumb is spreading the benefits of its success. It’s crucial for organisations to buy local if we want to make the ‘Hull pound’ stronger than ever.”

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BUSINESSES need to ensure their records are up to date as HMRC plans to take a proactive approach targeting Yorkshire companies as early as next month, according to accountants and business advisors BDO.

From November 4 HMRC will be piloting a new approach to its Business Records Checks programme in Leeds and Bradford, as well as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stockport.

The HMRC Business Records Checks (BRCs) programme uses on-site visits to encourage businesses to keep better records and then monitors their performance to see if the record keeping improves. To date HMRC has not had to charge any penalties but says that remains an option.

Paul Clarke, tax partner at BDO in Yorkshire, said: “Business owners should always keep their records as up to date and as accurate as possible. Aside from pleasing the taxman it is also essential for monitoring the performance of the business.

“However, there is an element of carrot and stick with Business Record Checks. They are keen to improve the record keeping of many businesses and that is positive. But the reality is that it can be intimidating for a business owner to have an HMRC representative come in and cast a critical look over their record keeping.”

Clarke continued: “There could also be an element of fishing for information with this scheme. HMRC’s announcement states that ‘many of the customers contacted by HMRC have been keeping records correctly. So HMRC wants to explore how to better target this activity.’ To that end they are trying new targeting tactics in specific regional areas. This does tend to imply that they haven’t caught enough people with a general search so are narrowing the focus.”

“It is important, therefore, for all business owners to maintain up to date records for their own peace of mind as well as to satisfy the taxman. HMRC has also said it is keen to work with tax agents so business owners may want to involve someone they already work with or get advice from an expert.”

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AFTER receiving £4.6m funding from the Government’s City Deal initiative in January, the Leeds City Region Apprenticeship Programme has set up eight local apprenticeship hubs and two apprenticeship training agencies.

The programme aims to identify and offer 2,500 new apprenticeship opportunities to 16-24 year olds by autumn 2015.

The programme has been set up to engage with and provide independent, free support to SME’s across the City Region to offer apprenticeship opportunities. It is being delivered in partnership with the eight local authorities of Barnsley, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, North Yorkshire [Harrogate, Craven & Selby], Wakefield and York.

The eight hubs have been developed at a local level to ensure they can deliver a service tailored to the local need. However, all of the hubs have the common goals of encouraging more businesses to offer apprenticeships to young people and raise awareness of apprenticeships as a career option.

In addition, two apprenticeship training agencies have been developed to support the activities of the hubs. ATAs act as the employing organisation when an SME is able to offer work opportunities but does not have the HR facilities for employment or cannot commit to 12 months of employment required for apprenticeships.

To highlight the work of the apprenticeship hubs and ATA’s to date, the Leeds City Region Partnership hosted an event for business support organisations.

The event was an opportunity for the hubs to network with the business community and showcase what support they can offer to businesses in the region who are interested in supporting the workforce of the future.