Josiah Wedgwood has been announced as the keynote speaker at the first event staged by a group of creative businesses based in Stoke-on-Trent.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council has named Nick Degg as Centenary Poet Laureate ahead of the city’s 100th anniversary next year. The North Staffordshire wordsmith, who is from Porthill, was appointed to the honorary position at a city council meeting and will represent the city through poetry throughout the centenary year in
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Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Abdulrazak Gurnah, will visit Staffordshire to give a public reading from his work at Keele University. Gurnah, who became the first black African writer in 35 years to win the prestigious award in 2021, will spend time working with Keele University’s Creative Writing students on
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By Esther Hancock, Tax Director, DPC Accountants Rachel Reeves delivered the most speculated budget for some years, given that the Labour Party prior to delivering the speech stated that there would be difficult decisions and tax rises would be necessary to plug the hole in the public finances. The Chancellor
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Businesses will bear the brunt of chancellor Rachel Reeves’ much anticipated (and leaked) first budget as she introduced a £40billion tax hike. £25billion of that will come from a jump in employer’s national insurance contributions. Reeves announced it will go up by 1.2 percentage points, to 15%, from April next
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Markets got the jitters after an initial calm response to the chancellor’s announcements while she was speaking in the Commons. Analysts had drawn comparisons with the disastrous Liz Truss mini-budget two years ago which spooked the markets with unfunded tax cuts. Predictions of a calm response were followed by a
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The UK’s public finance and spending watchdog concluded that Rachel Revees had delivered “large increases in spending, tax, and borrowing” with the country reaching a record tax take. In its response to the budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility confirmed: • The Budget increases spending by £70 billion annually, with two-thirds on
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Everything you ever wanted to know about Labour’s first budget in almost 15 years is contained in the Red Book, published by the Treasury. You can read it here.
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Fifteen local companies have created 37 apprenticeships thanks to funding from Stoke-on-Trent City Council. The city council paid out £63,000 from its apprenticeship levy in 2023/24 to employers with staff who live in the city, as well as supporting 106 people to study for apprenticeship qualification while working for the
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Feedback from Staffordshire businesses is strengthening the county’s case in a letter to Chancellor Rachel Reeves ahead of this week’s budget, which urges her to back businesses and boost confidence.
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Private sector care homes and carers in Stoke-on-Trent will benefit from a new online portal to refer their clients to social care services from next month.
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