News

There is now less than a week to go until the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Regulations and Tobacco Products Directive’s sell through period ends. From 20^th May 2017, retailers must ensure that all their stock is compliant with the new regulations.

From 20^th May, retailers must ensure that they only sell:

ACS has welcomed a commitment from the Conservative manifesto published today on business rates, meaning that all major parties in England and Wales have now pledged to reform the business rates system.

Property costs are among the largest costs faced by retailers and one-in-three retailers are paying increased rates since the revaluation. Additionally, only 39 out of 326 local authorities have provided discretionary rate relief to local businesses using powers contained in the Localism Act.

The key commitments made by the major parties are below.

The Labour Party have published their manifesto commitments ahead of the General Election on June 8th.

Some of the key policies announced in the document (which is available in full here: http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017) include:

The National Cyber Security Centre has issued guidance on the recent ransomware attacks on businesses.

There are two main pieces of guidance available, one for organisations and one for private individuals and SMEs which are applicable regardless of the age of the software being used. The full guidance is available here: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/ransomware-latest-ncsc-guidance

The Conservative Party have announced a range of new employment policies to deliver more rights for workers.  This also includes a commitment to increase the National Living Wage rates to raise in line with median earnings until 2022.  The full list of policies are detailed below;

ACS has responded to the government’s consultation which sets out their proposals to change the range of sanctions available to tackle the illicit tobacco trade, calling on them to focus their resources on making better use of existing sanctions.

There are only 10 days to go until the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Regulations and Tobacco Products Directive’s sell through period ends. From 20th May 2017, retailers must ensure that all their stock is compliant with the new regulations.

From 20^th May, retailers must ensure that they only sell:

The Home Office have published the latest figures from the 2016 Commercial Victimisation Survey, showing that there were around 3.5m incidents of customer theft against businesses in 2016, up from 3.4m in the year before, with a total of 5.2m crimes committed against wholesale and retail premises.

From today (May 5^th), the paper £5 note will be withdrawn from circulation after being replaced with the polymer £5 note. The co-circulation period for the two notes began on 13^th September 2016.

Retailers, banks and building societies do not have to accept the old £5 note after May 5^th, although some may do so at their own discretion. The Bank of England will always exchange its old-series notes.

Voting will take place today between 7:00am and 10:00pm for the local and mayoral elections.

Elections will be held in 34 councils in England, all 32 councils in Scotland and all 22 councils in Wales. In addition, six areas in England are voting for newly-created “combined local authority mayors”.