This week’s news in brief
Ouseley for Lords
The Government has named former Commission for Racial Equality chief
executive Sir Herman Ouseley as one of the first "people’s peers" to
join the House of Lords. Ouseley is also a former Personnel Today editorial
board member. Â www.cre.gov.uk
TUC calls off action
The TUC has called off its European court action on parental leave after the
Government announced plans to extend the right to unpaid parental leave to all
employees with children aged under five.
Previously, Britain had only allowed employees with children born after 15
December 1999 to take parental leave. Â www.tuc.org.uk
MBA business link
A national service that matches MBA students to business projects across the
UK was launched last week. It will be piloted through the Association of
MBA-affiliated schools, which includes Ashridge Management College and
Lancaster University Management School. Â www.mbamanagement.com
IT skills increase
IT literacy is on the increase even though many employers do not run
internal IT training courses.
Fifty-one per cent of the IT help desk vendors questioned in a report
thought users are becoming more technically competent.
Royalblue technologies, the company that produced the report, said more
people were picking up technical knowledge on their own initiative . Â www.royalblue.com
Ethics worry City
City workers have strong ethical convictions, according to research by
CitiPeople.com.
It found that 24 per cent of those working in the City have refused to apply
for a job on ethical grounds with only 9 per cent saying they were unaffected
by ethical issues in their job search. There were 930 respondents to the online
survey. Â www.CitiPeople.com