Under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA), all company directors and people with significant control (PSCs) must verify their identity with Companies House. This will improve transparency about who runs, owns and controls UK companies and support efforts to tackle economic crime. Here are our top 10 tips to help you verify your identity and stay compliant. 1. Understand the 2-step process The most important thing to understand is that identity verification for Companies House happens in two stages. Step 1: Verify your identity using GOV.UK One Login or an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP). Once complete, you’ll…

For many SMEs, legal advice can seem correct on paper but disconnected from the real world.  The question is usually not “what does the law say?” It is “do we really need a lawyer for this?” or “can’t we just deal with it ourselves?” Legal advice often feels abstract, written in language that does not easily translate into what is happening for a business on the ground.  SMEs need advice that connects the law to how the business operates.  I hadn’t planned to move in-house. After working with a client across several matters in private practice and taking the time…

What began as an intentionally unpolished podcast recorded on sofas, in cars and borrowed office space by coach Taz Thornton and her wife Asha Clearwater has grown into a global listenership.  The back-of-a-fag-packet approach (from two women who don’t smoke) has led to a growing ecosystem of training, tools and community for creators who want to show up without slick studios or performative branding. Award-winning coach, bestselling author and speaker Taz Thornton is continuing to grow the audience for her podcast Awesomely Off-Topic, co-hosted with her wife, book coach, editor and publisher Asha Clearwater of Turquoise Tiger. Since launching in July 2025, the weekly…

Educational packs developed by allergy sufferer and campaigner Julianne Ponan MBE and the Benedict Blythe Foundation have been selected by the Department for Education as supporting materials for the UK’s national Breakfast Clubs programme, which is due to roll out in April. The inclusion of the ‘ABC’ packs (Allergy Breakfast Club) marks a significant step towards ensuring the Breakfast Club scheme is safe and accessible for children with food or drink allergies. To date well over 280,000 children at schools across the UK have been given the ‘course’ and delivered voluntarily by Julianne, Helen Blythe and other volunteers. Julianne, who…

Five Things Employers Need To Consider As Background Screening Shifts In 2026 The way organisations screen staff is changing quickly. Artificial intelligence, rising fraud, and new regulations are all playing a part, and for many employers, it’s becoming harder to keep up. Rachel Bedgood, founder and CEO of Complete Background Screening (CBS), says 2025 has been a turning point for the industry, with more change expected in 2026. “Screening used to be something you did at the start of employment and then forgot about,” Rachel said. “That’s no longer the case. The risks are different now, and so are the…

After three years of growth across Europe, DeqVision is now focusing on the UK. The agency has worked with over 100 businesses across Europe and has advertised in almost every European market. The team believes the UK has a strong base of small and mid-sized businesses that need better digital marketing support. Why DeqVision chose the UK Many UK businesses want more leads and sales from digital marketing, but many feel stuck. This is common among Home eCommerce brands, such as furniture or home decor stores, that need steady online sales, and among real estate and design businesses, such as…

Most organisations treat business continuity as an insurance policy—something you pay for and hope never to use. However, as ransomware attacks occur every 11 seconds and supply chain disruptions are the new norm, hope is not a viable strategy. Traditional Disaster Recovery (DR) plans focus on recovering from a catastrophic failure, which is an outdated and potentially dangerous approach. Modern business continuity demands data resilience—the proactive architectural capability to withstand, absorb, and recover from shocks without compromising data integrity or availability. It is the difference between a frantic, month-long reconstruction of your digital estate and a controlled, predictable recovery that…

Employment Hero, the global leader in HR, hiring and payroll software, has today released its December Jobs Report, a snapshot of employment and wage trends based on real-time data from over 115,000 employee records within small businesses in the UK. The latest data reveals that employment gains in December were muted, rounding off a trend of slowed growth for small businesses which persisted throughout 2025. Employment Hero has been tracking these trends over the last 12 months, showing the real-world impact of the Autumn Budgets and subsequent employment law updates. Small businesses, which employ the majority of the UK workforce,…

SOUTHWEST-BASED social care consultancy practice Shreeve Care Services is partnering with call answering service Care Assist to support care providers to answer phone calls. “After two decades witnessing care providers struggle with overwhelming call volumes whilst families desperately seek information about loved ones, I’ve found a solution to one of the sector’s most damaging yet overlooked problems: unanswered calls,” said Janet, who lives in Wiltshire. The scale of the crisis is staggering. Industry research reveals 52% of care home enquiry calls go unanswered, with 85% of callers never ringing back. For a typical care home, each missed enquiry could mean…

Employment Uncovered, launched by global employment platform Employment Hero, reveals what the past year at work really looked like for people across the UK. The new research explores how people worked, rested and managed pressures throughout 2025.  Based on aggregated insights from over 100,000 employee records within small businesses and a national survey of 1,000 UK workers, it captures a year defined by pressure, burnout and uncertainty, but also shows a resilient nation finding ways to stay positive. Workers are taking holidays – but not switching off On average, UK workers have taken 19 days of annual leave so far* in…