Inform

Chamber membership provides access to key information, expert advice and legal protection, enabling you to stay informed, legally compliant and free to focus on what you do best – building your business.

Whether you need IT support for the first time or are thinking of switching providers, we believe these four items will help in your searching. Firstly, customer service is extremely important. How well the provider listens, understands, and adapts to your needs is vital. Also, their tone and language are indicators to how kind and friendly they are. Secondly, the type of contract you make with your provider will set the tone of the relationship. Some IT support providers tie their clients into 12-month contracts or longer. While some can be month by month like ours. This is something to be mindful of when conducting your research. Thirdly, response times and how quickly the provider responds are crucial in IT support. You should expect some form of communication within the first 10 minutes, but resolution times will depend on how high or low your request is. Lastly, you will want to assess what range of services the IT support provider can offer you. The majority will provide the essentials such as cloud and security services. However, we have come across some companies who can’t offer 24/7 support or Cyber Essentials. Advice from Cambridge Support

It’s always good to remind ourselves how to keep ourselves protected from cyber threats in our businesses, job and personal lives – let’s take a quick look at some easy wins. Password re-use is possibly the worst habit we have trained ourselves to do over the last few decades. Fortunately, there are solutions to help us with this! Password managers store all your online passwords meaning you do not need to remember them, and keep the actual detail secure. Using three random memorable words to create your passwords ensures they are strong and memorable, but hard for computers to guess. It’s increasingly important to use multiple layers of authentication to verify that it’s you accessing your personal or business data. Typically two types of factors are used which has led to the terms “2FA” or “MFA” (M=Multi). A combination of two things from different groups is required such as what you know, something physical you have access to, what you are (fingerprint, face) and where you are. Just because email is everywhere we can’t be complacent. Phishing emails are still the main cause of data and information breaches, therefore we need to remain vigilant with what we open. Always check the sender, query whether you were expecting the email, look at formatting and spelling, and question the sense of urgency phishing emails are often sent with. Keeping our devices and the sensitive information they store or enable access to secure is a continuous task. Devices being lost, stolen or tampered with and files being stolen is a risk we all face when we are out in the world. You can easily protect yourself by backing up data, encrypting the device and keeping them close! We also firmly believe that one of the most effective methods is to lock your devices, always. Advice from CyberScale

Although many of us have become more relaxed in our hybrid-working environments, much of the corporate cyber security responsibility now lies in the hands of each individual employee. The key cyber security issue is that, for employers, every individual is now a potential security weak point. There are six steps an organisation should take to maximise its chances of surviving as a successful hybrid-working business; STEP 1 Review your current security posture and pinpoint any obvious gaps STEP 2 Prepare and deploy new policies and give guidance for secure home-working including issues such as secure router configuration and device access STEP 3 Implement a staff awareness training programme to ensure everyone is aware of their role in managing the risks of working remotely. STEP 4 Put Cyber Essentials in place to stop the most common forms of Internet-based cyber attack STEP 5 Implement privacy staff awareness training to ensure your staff continue to be compliant with GDPR STEP 6 Implement an ongoing, longterm security strategy based on audits, penetration testing and simulated phishing attacks to ensure your organisation remains secure and compliant.

Ensure your organisations systems and staff are set up for the unpredictable year ahead with our Simulated Phishing Attack and Staff Awareness Training Programme. Our interactive e-learning course helps employees identify and understand phishing scams, explains what could happen should they fall victim, and shows them how they can mitigate the threat of an attack – ensuring all of your employees can continue to work securely in this hybrid-working world. Advice from IT Governance

Ahead of the requirement for all VAT-registered business to adhere to Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT, a provision which comes into force on 1 April 2022, Alison Horner, Partner at MHA, says this will be the really hard part of the MTD transition as very small businesses and sole traders will struggle with time-consuming software training larger companies could just about handle, but there are solutions: “A large number of UK sole traders and micro businesses are now in the firing line as HMRC pushes ahead with the digitalisation of tax. From 1 April 2022 Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT will be extended to those VAT-registered businesses with a turnover below £85,000. These firms will be required to register for MTD and to maintain digital records. For many the switch to digital tax will represent a demanding and time-consuming transition. Around 52 per cent of UK registered VAT businesses are set to be affected by this*. “Larger companies got away comparatively lightly with switching to MTD for VAT which started in April 2019. They could afford to either hire the staff with the right computer skills or provide the training for existing employees to handle the systems needed for this digital transition. Very small businesses do not have this luxury. “However, worried businesses can use two relatively quickfire solutions to buy more time. Firstly, for those not ready to take the leap to dedicated accounting software, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets coupled with bridging software, such as QuickBooks Online, can provide a simple, cost-effective and compliant way to submit VAT returns digitally to HMRC. Businesses can produce a ‘9-Box’ VAT return within the spreadsheet and upload this to the bridging software, which connects to HMRC and submits the VAT digitally. This provides a straightforward and cost-effective solution to overcome the challenges the digital switch poses for them. “Secondly, exemption from MTD is also available, but only if a business can show that it is not reasonable or practical to use computers, software, or the internet to comply with MTD rules. Depending on the circumstances, it is definitely worth exploring this option even if a business plans to digitalise its tax affairs in the end. Most businesses will not qualify for an exemption though and will have to bite the bullet between now and 1 April. “In the end MTD will improve efficiency. The ultimate goal for businesses should be to view tax documents and information in real time, as opposed to accessing records months, or even years, after the event. Yet, implementation will in many cases prove an arduous process and depending on the circumstances buying time with bridging software or an exemption will make sense for many businesses.”

*Annual UK VAT Statistics 2020 to 2021 Commentary reported that 52% of traders declared annual turnover below £85,000 in the tax year ending March 2021. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/value-added-tax-vat-annualstatistics/annual-uk-vat-statistics-2020-to-2021-commentary#vat-populationand-taxable-turnover

Chamber membership provides access to key information, expert advice and legal protection, enabling you to stay informed, legally compliant and free to focus on what you do best – building your business.

As we nationally continue our economic recovery from the pandemic, it seems more and more attention is being placed on developments in our labour market situation. Looking at data from the Office of National Statistics as I write this (21 January 2022), we are told: • The number of pay roll employees is up and above pre-Covid levels, • The unemployment rate (4.1%) is lower than pre-pandemic times, • Redundancies are at a record low, But… • Job vacancies have reached record levels of 1.2m+ o Across Cambridgeshire & Peterborough over the last 30 days to 21 January 2022, over 20,000 job adverts have been placed (according to our LMI resource Labour Insight) Today (27 January 2022), the government’s new “Way to Work” scheme was being ‘advertised’ to address this deficit. The government says that it is intended to target those who are able to work but either do not have a job or are earning low amounts. Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey said an aim of the scheme is to “Help people get any job now, mean[ing] they can get a better job and progress into a career.” (https:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60149016) This means that potentially when you advertise for staff, you will be getting applications from a different type of jobseeker – maybe those with potential rather than the finished article. Therefore, would it be better for your business to be able to promote internally, and then take on a worker with potential in a junior position? Hold that thought… It is a discussion for another day and more column space why we have the number of vacancies we have alongside the unemployed population, and that discussion isn’t going to help us now in the situations we find ourselves in. So, getting back to an opening question: How are you getting the best from your current employees? In most cases, people have had to draw on reserves they didn’t know they had over the past near two years - many have had to become more resilient, resourceful and innovative to get through the challenges they have faced. But has anyone truly had the opportunity to reflect on those times and, importantly, apply those experiences to their working environment? For me, writing this with a background in Skills and Education and a current role working in and with Careers and Employability, what is needed now is time – not lots of it necessarily – but time to reflect and regroup as business and individuals. JRR Tolkien said: “…All we have to decide is what to do with the time given to us…” Have you taken the time to look at any vacancies you have against the workforce available to you? Have you taken the time to complete a training needs analysis of the gaps you have versus the skills, experience and qualifications you need? Have you and your employees – impartially and unbiasedly – taken the time to complete an evaluation of what unknown, underutilised, new skills and abilities have been learnt from personal journeys over the last two years? There is an abundance of professional, qualified support that is available to help support and facilitate this reflection. For example, I manage the National Careers Service in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and one of the areas we coach is development of staff in the workplace (we don’t exist just to work with the unemployed or school leavers as is often assumed). Likewise, there is professional, qualified support that exists to train, upskill and qualify your workforce, such as: • Apprenticeships (not just for 16 year olds), • Skills Support for the Workforce (not just for entry level jobs), • Skills Bootcamps (not just for the unemployed), • Level 2 & 3 Courses (not just for those who may have struggled at school) • …all potentially fully funded and free to the beneficiaries. So, what is going to get us through the next period of this pandemic is our perspective: Will we just accept we are in challenging times? or Is it time to take time and rise to the challenge? Nick Speroni, Business Manager and Helena Minton, Careers Advisor, Futures for You

A “repudiatory” breach is circumstances where one party so acts or so expresses itself as to show that it does not mean to accept the obligations of a contract any further. A repudiatory breach is one of such significance that it would provide the innocent party with a common law right to terminate the contract and to claim damages.

Where a party has committed a repudiatory breach, the innocent party has the right to either: a) accept the repudiation and terminate the contract, bringing the performance of the primary obligations of the parties to an end, or b) affirm the contract (if possible), in which case the contract and primary obligations continues. If electing to terminate the contract, the innocent party must communicate the acceptance of the repudiatory breach, expressly or by conduct. It is recommended that acceptance is expressly communicated to avoid ambiguity. If electing to affirm the contract, it would also be recommended that the innocent party expressly communicate to the defaulting party that although there has been a repudiatory breach, they are content to affirm the contract (waiving the right to terminate in the process). Whether electing to terminate or to affirm, the innocent party will have the right to claim damages for losses arising from the repudiatory breach. Repudiation in construction contracts is a complex matter, read our full article at https://arbicon.co.uk/blog/repudiatory-breachrights-and-remedies Advice from Arbicon