December 3, 2024

You are here: Home / Archives for britons

BBC Severance Dispute Goes to Parliamentary Panel

September 9, 2013 by

Mr. Thompson, who left the BBC in 2012 and is now the president and chief executive officer of The New York Times Co., has challenged July testimony by Mr. Patten about how much the trust was told about a series of large severance payments to executives who left the corporation in an effort to reduce costs.

While the details of the dispute are complicated and arcane, and personalities aside, the questions of how the BBC uses its money and whether its executives get sufficient oversight from the trust are the real meat of the issue.

In recent submissions to Parliament, Mr. Thompson has accused the trust, which represents the interests of ordinary Britons who pay a television tax that goes to the BBC, of misleading the committee and the National Audit Office. In July, Mr. Patten had expressed surprise at the details of key severance payments, which were larger than contractually mandated, according to the auditors, while Mr. Thompson insists that the trust was fully informed and raised no objections. In particular, Mr. Thompson’s deputy, Mark Byford, was given a full year’s salary in lieu of notice despite having worked another eight months when the deputy’s job was eliminated.

One of the documents Mr. Thompson has presented is a briefing memo prepared for Mr. Patten explaining the payments, which were approved before Mr. Patten became chairman of the trust. He said that Mr. Patten’s testimony in July was “fundamentally misleading about the extent of trust knowledge and involvement.”

In a statement, the trust called Mr. Thompson’s submission “a bizarre document,” saying “we completely disagree with Mark Thompson’s analysis” and that Mr. Patten and trustee Anthony Fry had not misled Parliament. Mr. Patten, it said, had not had “a full and formal briefing on the exact terms of Mark Byford’s departure.”

Mr. Patten has come under considerable criticism for the large severance payment given to Mr. Thompson’s successor, George Entwistle, who lasted only 54 days in the job before resigning last November over a reporting scandal but was given a full year’s salary in addition to a severance payment, totaling some 475,000 pounds. The furor over that payment has made the earlier payments more politically sensitive.

The auditors found that of 150 senior executives who left in the three years ending December 2012, which cost the corporation 25 million pounds, the BBC paid more salary in lieu of notice than contractually mandated in 22 cases, for an extra cost of 1.4 million pounds. In addition, the auditors said, the BBC agreed to other discretionary payments, including car services and fees, to 22 managers at a cost of another 510,000 pounds, which the corporation said were the result of negotiations with those who were being laid off.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/europe/bbc-severance-dispute-goes-to-parliamentary-panel.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

Parliament Hearing to Focus on BBC Severance Dispute

September 6, 2013 by

Mr. Thompson, who left the BBC in 2012 and is now the president and chief executive officer of The New York Times, has challenged July testimony by Mr. Patten about how much the trust was told about a series of large severance payments to executives who left the corporation in an effort to reduce costs.

In a 25-page witness statement submitted to Parliament on Friday, Mr. Thompson has accused the trust, which represents the interests of ordinary Britons who pay an annual television fee that goes to the BBC, of misleading the committee and the National Audit Office.

In July, Mr. Patten expressed surprise at the details of important severance payments, which were larger than contractually mandated, according to the auditors, while Mr. Thompson insisted that the trust had been fully informed and raised no objections. In particular, Mr. Thompson’s deputy, Mark Byford, was given a full year’s salary in lieu of notice despite having worked an additional eight months when the deputy’s job was eliminated.

One of the documents Mr. Thompson has presented is a briefing memo prepared for Mr. Patten explaining the payments, which were approved before Mr. Patten became chairman of the trust. He said that Mr. Patten’s testimony in July was “fundamentally misleading about the extent of trust knowledge and involvement.”

In a statement, the trust called Mr. Thompson’s submission “a bizarre document,” said that “we completely disagree with Mark Thompson’s analysis,” and said that Mr. Patten and Anthony Fry, a trustee, had not misled Parliament. Mr. Patten had not had “a full and formal briefing on the exact terms of Mark Byford’s departure,” the trust said.

Mr. Patten has come under considerable criticism for the large severance given to Mr. Thompson’s successor, George Entwistle, who lasted only 54 days in the job. He resigned in November over a reporting scandal, but was given a full year’s salary in addition to a normal severance payment. The furor over that package has made the earlier payments more politically delicate.

Both Mr. Thompson and Mr. Patten will appear before the Public Accounts Committee on Monday.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/world/europe/parliament-hearing-to-focus-on-bbc-severance-dispute.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: , ,

Preoccupations: Global Competence Is Vital in Business

June 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

In the era of globalization, however, our companies, managers, partners, colleagues and constituents are spread out all over the world. A company based in New York might hire a team in India to manage a project on the ground in Europe. Or a California company might have a presence in China, South Korea or Mexico — or all three. American professionals can no longer afford to be insular.

For several years, I talked up the idea of global competence to anyone who would listen, until one day I realized that I was being hypocritical. I had never spent more than a few weeks outside the United States or worked extensively with people in other countries. So when my husband, Stewart Shankman, an associate professor of clinical psychology, received an opportunity for a sabbatical at King’s College in London, our whole family crossed the pond for several months, and I decided to continue my work as a consultant and writer there, with the goal of enhancing my own global competence.

After moving into a flat in the literary neighborhood of Bloomsbury, I expected the heavy weight of expat anxiety to descend upon me. But then I realized that I had felt more culture shock when I moved from New York to Chicago in 2004 than I did in relocating to London. Britain is like the middle ground between the United States and the rest of Europe. But there are subtle differences that are important to understand if an American professional is to be competent there.

For one thing, most Britons are unfailingly polite. A professional based in London may agree to something in order to be nice, but you shouldn’t necessarily expect the request to be granted. And compared with Americans, Britons tend to be emotionally restrained at work. Major displays of enthusiasm or dismay are rare, and aggressive arguments and overt self-promotion are no-nos. Yet they will happily call you on the phone for a chat or a check-in. I found that I had to be careful not to mistake some of them for telemarketers.

Mastering these nuances little by little, I dived into the task of learning how business was done in Britain. Because my principal area of expertise is talent management, I focused on that. For example, I met with nearly two dozen British professionals — women and men, and of different ages and ethnicities — in fields including human resources, marketing, transportation, health care and banking.

At the London Business School, I sat down with Lynda Gratton, a professor of management practice who talks about globalization in her book, “The Shift.” Although she told me that my global competence would be better honed in Bangalore, India, she echoed my feelings about its necessity in the future world of work. “Pervasive connectivity means that organizations are operating in a global context even if they don’t have a presence overseas,” she said. “This is true for individuals, too.”

If you’re a contractor, for instance, you will increasingly have access to a global resource pool. “With the right specialization and a diverse network, you can sell your products and services to clients all over the world,” Professor Gratton said. “However, this requires a certain mind-set. It means being familiar enough with your clients’ cultures to know how a sentence will sound there.”

FINE-TUNING your global competence doesn’t have to mean a lifestyle overhaul. If you’re employed by a decent-size company, ask to spend a few days in a foreign office, or for an assignment that involves close business dealings with other countries. Read foreign newspapers to gain insights into the daily goings-on of a particular country. Hop onto Skype and interview international colleagues to learn how your industry operates abroad.

My British work experience ended last month, and I’m back in Chicago. The most important thing I’ve brought back with me is a greater sensitivity and perceptiveness. I’m beginning to see that global competence is also about understanding the interplay among individuals, countries, industries and organizational cultures. Those who seek out people and situations foreign to them and master the ability to assimilate are far more likely to be successful in a world that’s becoming both bigger and smaller at the same time.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/jobs/global-competence-is-vital-in-business.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

Britons Are Young, Ready and Willing, but Few Jobs in Sight

November 17, 2011 by Leave a Comment

LONDON — Zach Igglesden has been sending out dozens of job applications a week for the past year to companies across Britain. So far, he said, he has not even been invited to an interview.

Mr. Igglesden, 20, of Southend, east of London, finished secondary school two years ago and decided against pursuing a university education because he did not want to graduate with the burden of a student loan and no job.

His goal is relatively modest — to work as a sales assistant in a shop — but he said he had repeatedly been turned down because he lacked experience.

“It’s just very frustrating,” Mr. Igglesden said. “If you’re lucky, you get a reply, but mostly you don’t hear anything at all.”

To the roster of pain inflicted by the European debt crisis, add this: rising and persistent joblessness among young Britons. Though not at the level of troubled euro zone countries like Greece and rooted in domestic problems as well, it has reached a point here that is setting off alarms across the political and economic spectrum.

Unemployment among British youth, defined as those 16 to 24 years old, rose above the politically sensitive threshold of one million in the three months through the end of September, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. That’s the highest level since 1992.

An estimated 20.6 percent of British youth not pursuing a full-time education were without a job, an increase of 1.8 percentage points from the previous three months.

The problem is not confined to youth. Total unemployment in Britain rose by 129,000 to 2.62 million in the third quarter, bringing the jobless rate to 8.3 percent, the highest in 15 years.

Youth unemployment has been climbing in many European Union member states as economies struggle and governments impose stringent austerity plans. Spain’s youth unemployment rate reached 45 percent in the second quarter, the worst among European Union members, followed by Greece with 42.9 percent rate, according to Eurostat, the European Union statistics agency.

Britain never joined the euro zone and relies on its own currency, the pound. But the British government, which like its Greek counterpart has cut public-sector jobs and spending to trim a huge budget deficit, blamed the poor employment data in part on the euro crisis, which has depressed demand for British products in European markets and caused British companies to hesitate to hire.

“These figures show just how much our economy is being affected by the crisis in the euro zone,” Employment Minister Chris Grayling said Wednesday. “Our European partners must take urgent action to stabilize the position.”

The Bank of England also cited the euro crisis Wednesday as a reason for slashing its outlook for economic growth in 2012 to 1 percent, from an earlier projection of 2 percent, and paring its forecast for 2013 by half a percentage point, to 2.5 percent.

“Implementation of a credible and effective policy response in the euro area would help to reduce uncertainty and so support U.K. growth, but its absence poses the single biggest risk to the domestic recovery,” the bank said in its quarterly Inflation Report.

The opposition Labour Party warned Wednesday that the coalition government headed by Prime Minister David Cameron needed to stop blaming the euro zone for Britain’s economic problems and slow down its aggressive spending cuts that are “hurting but not working.”

Even the Confederation of British Industry, an employers’ group that generally aligns with the economic policies of Mr. Cameron’s Conservative Party, called Wednesday for urgent action by the government to get Britons, especially young people, working.

“A generation risks being scarred by the devastating effects of long-term unemployment,” said John Cridland, the group’s director general.

Rising unemployment among the young is especially worrying because it can easily lead to long-term unemployment and make it harder for the next generation to find their way into the work force, economists and charity workers said. That would not only hurt economic growth but could also affect youth crime rates, research showed.

Reducing youth unemployment by one percentage point could save £2 million, or $3.2 million, by avoiding youth crime, according to research by the Center for Economic Performance, a research concern at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/business/global/britons-are-young-ready-and-willing-but-few-jobs-in-sight.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

For Many in Britain, Being a Homeowner Is a Fading Dream

June 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment

LONDON — For a large number of young adults in Britain, homeownership has become increasingly difficult to achieve, viewed as a distant goal attainable only later in life, if at all.

That is a significant shift for a country where owning a home remains deeply rooted in the culture. Owners occupy a higher percentage of homes in Britain than in the United States, France or Germany.

But as the pain of government-imposed austerity sinks in, disposable income has shrunk and loan requirements have toughened, forcing more and more Britons into renting rather than buying.

The average age of first-time buyers is now 31, up from 28 five years ago, and the number of people renting has increased sharply, signs that the boom in homeownership that began under Margaret Thatcher’s government 30 years ago is starting to reverse.

Some economists are concerned that as more people are forced to wait to buy a home, the country’s wealth gap could widen, endangering the retirement prospects for a swelling group of young adults they call “generation rent.”

Charlotte Ashton, 30, has lived in rented accommodations ever since she left her parent’s home to attend university. She said she was happy sharing a five-bedroom house in the Shepherds Bush area of London with four other women but was saving for a down payment to buy her own home.

“I do believe in the fundamentals of owning bricks and mortar as security for the future, more than leaving my money in the banks at a low interest rate,” said Ms. Ashton, who works in public relations. “Unless you have a very well paid job and are willing to save every penny, it’s unfeasible to buy without the help of the bank of Mum and Dad.”

About four years ago, a first-time buyer had to raise an average down payment equal to 41 percent of annual income to buy a property, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. Now it is more than 87 percent of income, or about £26,500 ($42,800). And while banks were willing to make mortgage loans for more than the value of the house before the credit crisis, buyers now find they must put up at least 10 percent, and often substantially more. (The average deposit for first-time buyers is 23 percent, according to the price comparison Web site Moneysupermarket).

A study by Halifax, a British mortgage lender, showed last month that while 77 percent of 20 to 45 year-olds who were currently renting would like to buy a home, more than two-thirds believed they had no prospect of doing so. Only 5 percent said they were managing to save toward a deposit.

Those who do save, like Ms. Ashton, who has set aside the equivalent of about $50,000, are unlikely to be able to afford a home in the same area they rent in. “I would have to look further out of London or for a smaller property,” she said. So for now, like many, she is staying put.

One reason homeownership remains attractive in Britain is because property values dropped less drastically than in the United States, in part because of a shortage in housing. Prices in some large cities, including London, have even increased recently. People still perceive a home to be a better and safer investment than a pension fund, said Andrew Hull, research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research. “Homeownership is also culturally entrenched,” he said. “Owning a home is the main way of showing you made it.”

The big shift toward homeownership came in the 1980s with Mrs. Thatcher’s right-to-buy policy, which allowed many in rented government housing to buy their homes. About two million homes were sold, earning the government tens of billions of pounds.

At the same time, the rental market became increasingly unattractive. Unlike Germany and other Continental European countries, Britain’s private rental market is highly fragmented, with many landlords, and laws that generally favor the property owner. Most leases are for six months only, with landlords rarely agreeing to commit to longer terms; this makes renting highly insecure.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/business/global/24rent.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,