News

A senior adviser to Rachel Reeves has drawn sharp criticism from the hospitality sector after saying Britain does not “need any more restaurants”. Alex Depledge, appointed last year as the Government’s entrepreneurship adviser, argued that ministers should prioritise high-growth industries such as technology and advanced manufacturing rather than hospitality and retail. Speaking to Insider Media, Depledge said: “We don’t need any more restaurants. I’m not anti-hospitality, but that’s not where my efforts are.” She added...

In many organisations, portfolio is still viewed as a list of products and services – something to be expanded in the hope that more choice will unlock more opportunity. In reality, sustainable growth rarely comes from volume alone. For high-performing businesses, a strategic portfolio is one that is deliberately designed around customer outcomes. It supports acquisition, strengthens retention and creates long-term value through clarity, consistency and service excellence. In this blog I will be exploring...

The UK’s data protection watchdog has fined Reddit £14.47m after finding serious failings in how the platform handled children’s personal information. The penalty, issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), follows an investigation that concluded Reddit had failed to implement robust age assurance mechanisms and did not have a lawful basis for processing the data of children under 13. Under UK data protection law, children’s information must be given special protection. The ICO said Reddit...

Britain’s human resources sector has grown disproportionately large and is costing businesses billions of pounds a year, according to a new report from the think tank Policy Exchange. The centre-right research body claims that the UK’s HR industry is almost twice as large, proportionally, as that of the European Union and around 60 per cent bigger than in the United States. It estimates that this “misallocation of labour” is costing the economy roughly £10bn annually...

More than half of young Britons are unable to name a single entrepreneur, according to new research that campaigners say highlights a worrying disconnect between the UK’s startup culture and the next generation. A YouGov survey conducted for Enterprise Britain found that 56 per cent of 18 to 25-year-olds could not name an entrepreneur, founder or chief executive. Among those who could, Richard Branson was the most frequently cited, named by 16 per cent of...