This
week’s news in brief
Young
speaks out
The
head of the Institute of Directors, Lord Young, has called for non-executive
directorships to be scrapped and told the Institute’s convention that allowing
part-timers to police boardrooms was naive. He said attempts to regulate
non-executives were dangerous, and that investors needed to hold management
directly accountable.
Postal
staff to strike
Postal
workers are set to take part in the first national strike in six years over a
change in working patterns. The Royal Mail has offered 2.2 per cent to the
Communication Workers Union to expand delivery spans from two-and-a-half to
four hours. However, the union does not want the issue to be dealt with by the
pay claim and has set 8 May as a strike day.
Pensions
to go
More
companies are likely to axe their final salary pension schemes to cut costs in the wake of the Budget,
warned the National Association of Pension Funds.
NAPF
chairman Peter Thompson said the 1 per cent rise in the employers National
Insurance bills – estimated to cost companies £4bn a year – will drive
businesses to look at pensions provisions as they were an obvious target for
cost cutting.
Bedside
manners
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The
Government is promoting training courses which will teach doctors and nurses to
be nicer to patients. From later this year, all NHS health professionals will
receive help with communication skills from psychologists, who will run classes
on how to deal with difficult situations.
