Industry news

Plans for and above-the-line (ATL) R&D credit tax were announced last week in the budget which could simplify the way in which businesses claim R&D.

This comes as part of recent reforms in the move towards improving R&D tax credit for small businesses. David Gauke exchequer secretary at the Treasury stated that “overall, we would like a system for supporting R&D which is simple for both business and HMRC to administer. Reflecting this, we would also welcome your views on the existing large company scheme and whether it should be retained.”

The change in R&D tax credits is a welcome move for smaller businesses as they changes are expected to facilitate innovation and growth particularly in the technology industry. However, Mariana Mazzucato, Chair in Science and Technology Policy at the University of Sussex, warns that the government must introduce more structured ways of helping companies with R&D if it is to effectively encourage innovation. She says only 3% of the UK economy comes under high-tech manufacturing.

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has reported that the pay gap between the public and private sector has reached its height, with civil servants being paid up to 9pc more on average.

According to ONS public sector workers were paid on average between 7.7pc and 8.7pc more than private sector employees last year. The April 2011 figure compares with a gap of 7.8pc in 2010, and 5.3pc in 2007, before the financial crisis began.

In order to ensure the figures are consistent over time, the numbers assume employees of those banks nationalised in 2008 were in the private sector until 2011; if the ONS had not made that assumption, the pay gap would have widened even more to 9.3pc.

There are many reasons for these high figures, such as the higher number of older employees with higher wages in the public sector, the public sector holds higher skilled jobs and therefore has a higher proportion of employees with degrees or higher education and it outsources the lower-skilled jobs to private businesses.

The ONS's figures do not take into account that the private sector excludes self-employed people and non-cash remuneration such as pension contributions and health insurance.

The education minister’s plan to sweep aside current ICT curriculum could leave void, warns academic Dr Peter Twining, senior lecturer at the Open University.

Teachers are using the education minister's proposal to reform the ICT curriculum as an excuse to stop all teaching of computing as it would no longer be assessed until a new curriculum is implemented, which could take over a year.

Twining argues that if the plan goes ahead we could be without a curriculum for 2 years, and that it would be preferential to keep the existing curriculum whilst working on the new one. He also added that it is not only the curriculum that needs reviewing, but the lack of qualified ICT teachers too.

Analyst group Gartner has reported an 18% growth in sales of software-as-a-service (SaaS) in the last year, and predicts that the growth will continue thanks to cloud SaaS.

Gartner’s $12.3bn in sales has climbed in twelve months by no less than 18% to hit $14.5bn in 2012 and could reach as much as $22.1bn by 2015.

The growth is most prevalent in vertical-specific software, but the most widespread use is still characterised by horizontal applications with common processes, among distributed virtual workforces and within web 2.0 activities.

The Government Procurement Service has signed two more deals, both in the print area.

In the first, the Government Procurement Service has selected the UK arm of Xerox as sole supplier for an estimated £150m multifunctional devices contract and as a preferred supplier of managed print services in a new framework agreement, with Xerox being named as a sole supplier in the devices category.

In the second deal M2 a specialist firm was appointed, to a role as national pint auditors. The supplier, an independent managed print IT services company, will now offer a tiered range of audit consultancy services for “any government body,” helping it to assess their current print environment.

London’s Overground will soon have free Wi-Fi access at all stations. The Wi-Fi is set to be installed this summer as London Overground signed a contract with providers The Cloud. Passengers on the service will be able to check their email and surf the web for free for 60 minutes a day.

Steve Murphy, Managing Director of London Overground Rail Operations, said: "Access to the internet is no longer limited solely to home or to the workplace, and people’s expectation is to be able to work and communicate effectively and seamlessly while they’re on the move so we’re delighted to support this initiative which will bring reliable, free WiFi to London Overground’s customers.”

The move follows a similar deal earlier this month, with Virgin Media signing a contract London Underground to provide Wi-Fi at their stations. The underground service will be free initially, but will become a pay-as-you-go service. The Overground service, however, will remain free.

Indian outsourcers employed 107,000 staff in the US last year. A study by the U.S National Association of Software and Services Companies also revealed that 175,000 other jobs were created indirectly by the outsourcing.

Indian IT and business process outsourcing employs around 2.5 million, and the study revealed that the number of US staff employed has increased to 30% from less than 10% four years ago. Nasscom President, Som Mittal, also stated that local hiring in the US has more than doubled in the last five years.

Mittal stated that Indian companies are not only creating jobs in the US but also investing in training schemes and other activities designed to enhance local workforces.

The study comes in to the run up to the US presidential election, and looks to defend offshoring in the US, which had an unemployment rate of 8.3 million in February.

La Caixa has agreed for its listed arm, CaixaBank, buy out their smaller rivial Banca Civica in a £915 deal. The deal valued the whole of Banca Civica at around €980, as La Caixa offered €1.97 per share and the deal makes La Caixa Spain’s biggest bank in terms of assets.

The deal comes as new government laws have encouraged mergers between banks after several collapsed following the bursting of the property bubble. Civica itself was formed out of combining four struggling regional banks. The merger will mean La Caixa will have around 14 million customers.

"The merger will help to consolidate the restructuring of the Spanish banking sector, by creating a leading bank in the Spanish financial system with an extensive regional presence, which will help support the country's economic development," the bank said.

The deal is expected to generate cost savings and other benefits to the vaue of around €540 million by 2014.

IBM and Accenture have proposed to create 500 new developer roles in the UK and India for work on the Department for Work and Pensions’ Universal Credit system.

The outsourcing contract, worth £525 million, is expected to be carried out next year and by having some of the development work done offshore, the DWP expects to save "both cost and time", but has created controversy.

Paul Macpherson, from the department's Universal Credit Design Technology, stated: "I truly believe we have an offshore capability which provides world-class expertise and we are leveraging the best resources Accenture and IBM, in particular, have to offer. We are looking to maximise the use of offshore development in the interests of both cost and time.”

DWP also defended the decision as they insisted that no existing jobs in the UK are being sent overseas under the plans and are exploring how previously off-shored could be moved back to the UK.

The Universal Credit system will unify all current means-tested benefit systems to create one, single income-replacement benefit for all working age adults.

Oracle Co president Mark Hurd will be joined by Balaji Yelamanchili, Senior Vice President of Analytics and Performance Management on 4th April. The event will also include updates on new applications aimed at SAP customers.

The executives will "unveil the latest advances in Oracle's strategy for placing analytics into the hands of every one of your decision-makers," according an announcement on the Oracle website.

Oracle's Exalytics machine is set to be a main focus of the event, with "integrated analytic applications" for Oracle's enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software lines being discussed. "New analytic solutions for SAP customers" is also on the agenda.