UK Asian Voice | 20th May 2017
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Getting Into The BBC Rani Singh, Special Assignments Editor
Another Senior Indian Helping Grow the BBC This is a story of how one British Indian made her way into the BBC and has flourished there for over three decades. She is now working on the biggest expansion the BBC has ever initiated.
Describing herself
Rani says she would describe herself as a skilled HR professional with proven multi-tasking organisational abilities: identifying, planning, implementing and developing HR & Recruitment strategies and systems. She says that she is particularly driven by delivering the right people, at the right time for the business. She has a record of success as a senior recruitment professional in media and publishing. Creating a compelling vision, devising an engaging strategy and making it happen in the service of engaging the best talent for the BBC is her passion. All whilst balancing commercials, innovation and candidate experience. In her spare time she likes to paint abstract art!
Qualified with a distinction in the Institute of Marketing Diploma Rani has always approached her work and life with a creativity of thought designed to not just look at the obvious result but to ensure all options are considered to achieve the desired outcome. Her working life started in April 1984 with a 12 month work experience placement with the BBC in Birmingham, which was required as part of the BA Business Studies course she was doing at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. The break came after she conscientiously wrote speculative letters to over 140 employers in and around the Midlands. The BBC (she remembers clearly to this day her 120th letter) answered her plea to take her on a paid placement and she never left! This work placement seamlessly played to her strengths and aspirations. With an HR focus she built her career working initially in regional news and local programmes and two years ago she turned her attention to Central Resourcing & Talent Attraction pan BBC, but soon returned to her first love of Resourcing for BBC News Group.
Background
Rani, born in Birmingham and the eldest of five children, recalls she was the first to go to University in the family and it was only
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ing to improve the client after she managed to perand candidate experience; suade her Dad and Uncles her team provides proacthe merits of further edutive candidate engagement, cation was she given the go focusing on candidate ahead. Having failed all her attraction, talent pooling GCSEs the first time round and mapping. she went on to win a colThe BBC News lege prize for achievGroup, formed in ing the highest April 2011 incorpoprogress when rates BBC Network she passed all Leading on the News — News her GCSEs and gained a recruitment for Channels, Mobile and place at Online, the largest University. Current Affairs, expansion in H e r Daily News mum and the BBC since P r o g r a m m e s , dad Newsgathering, the 1940s Shavinder and and Production Bhajan Dosanjh Operations teams — are from the along with English Punjab in India, a vilRegions and the World lage called Dosanjh Kalan Service Group. The News just outside Phagwara. Group makes up more than They came over to the UK a third of the BBC with in the early 1960s, where over 8,500 staff around the Dad worked in iron UK and the world serving a foundries in Smethwick; huge variety of audiences. Mum held a number of Rani’s latest talking point is the expansion of part-time roles in-between the BBC World Service bringing up Rani and her the largest expansion since siblings. They both are the 1940s, meaning it will now retired and live in Wolverhampton. soon be available in forty languages including English. Over the next Latest Challenge three years to 2020, Rani is leading on the recruitRani took up her current ment of 1400 roles (UK & role as the Lead overseas) for 12 new serResourcing and Talent vices soon to launch in the Business Partner for News, following languages – Radio and the Korean; Oromo; Amharic; International Group in Tigrinya; Gujarati; Telugu; September 2016. Aligned Punjabi; Marathi; Yoruba; to the BBC News Group Pidgin Igbo and Serbian, she now leads an in-house and there will be signifiteam of 23 recruiters based cant investment into new across the UK delivering platforms and proan exemplary end to end grammes. resourcing function for all Check out the latest permanent and fixed term vacancies on the dedicated contract hires. Rani says BBC website for World that this essentially Service: involves workforce planwww.bbc.co.uk/wscareers ning to collaborative work-
Dealing with Inheritance Tax: Part 1 – The Basics
Kishan Devani Consultant
The great Benjamin Franklin once said “The only things certain in life are death and taxes!”. He must certainly have been referring to Inheritance Tax. How nice would it be to know that after a long life of hard work, all the fruits of our efforts will pass on to our offspring? Unless prior planning is put in place, her Majesty's Government will take a big chunk of the fruits of our labour in the form of Inheritance Tax (IHT). The idea behind IHT is that instead of wealth staying in the hands of wealthy families in perpetuity, once a person passes on; some of their
Rani Randhawa
accumulated wealth is given to the government to redistribute to the poor. The argument against IHT is that it is unfair to punitively tax the family of a deceased individual who has worked hard to accumulate his wealth – often at their expense. A further argument against the current model of IHT is that with house values having grown exponentially in recent years; even those who are not particularly wealthy, fall into the IHT trap. The government has addressed this issue to some extent by recently introducing the Main Residence Nil Rate Band. which by tax year 2020/21 will allow married/civil partner couples to pass on up to £1,000,000 IHT free. IHT is a tax on money and possessions you leave behind when you die, and on some gifts you make during your lifetime. However, a certain amount can be passed on tax-free. This is known as the 'Nil Rate Band' (NRB). Everyone currently has an NRB of £325,000. If you are single and die with an estate worth more than £325,000
(including money, property, investments and chattels but after deducting debts and expenses such as funeral costs), 40% tax will become due on anything above £325,000. In addition to this if you own your main residence you will have an additional £100,000 IHT allowance which will rise to £175,000 by tax year 2020/21. For example, if you leave behind an estate worth £1,200,000 including your main residence the tax bill will be £310,000 (40% on £775,000 – the difference between £1,200,000 and £425,000). However, if you are married, you may be able to leave more than this before paying tax. Married couples are allowed to pass their possessions and assets to each other tax-free and the surviving partner is now allowed to use both IHT tax-free allowances (providing one wasn’t used at the first death). At the extreme, this effectively doubles the amount the surviving partner can leave behind taxfree without the need for special tax planning.
Of course, in an ideal world, everything that you have spent your life accumulating would be passed on to your children and grand-children, untouched. The reality is that Inheritance Tax (IHT) can eat up almost half of your hard-earned wealth. Having covered the basics of IHT, let me share a couple of the most basic approaches that can be used to mitigate the amount of IHT that your estates will have to pay on your demise.
Spend, spend, spend!
One sure-fire way to reduce the amount of IHT that will be payable when you die is to spend as much as possible in your lifetime. The less you leave behind, the less that needs to be paid in IHT. Of course this has two main drawbacks. Firstly it would mean that less will be passed on to your children and grand-children. There are people who would say “I’ve worked hard to accumulate my wealth, now I want to enjoy it. If my kids want to have wealth, let them accumulate it for themselves.” Secondly most people don’t
know how long they will live so if you do spend, spend, spend you just might run out of money!
Gifting
The most common way used to ensure that your wealth passes to your children and grandchildren is to make gifts to them during your lifetime. There are a few of caveats to this, which make many people consider alternative approaches. l Once you have made a gift, you lose control of the gift, which may mean that the gift is used in a way you do not approve of or is wasted in a way you may think of as trivial. l The Seven-Year Rule. Any amount can be gifted outright with no limit, however when making a gift, it is important to be aware that the amount gifted is only considered to be out of your estate after seven whole years have passed from when the gift was made. There is a tapered scale from the third year after the gift was made, after which a percentage of the gift is considered to be out of your estate. If you die in the third year,
The value of your investments can go down as well as up and past performance of an investment is not necessarily a guide to future performance.
20% of the gift is considered to be out of your IHT estate; in the fourth year, 40%; in the fifth year, 60%; in the sixth year, 80%; only from the end of the seventh year onwards is the gift considered to be totally out of your estate. l If you don’t think you will live seven years, then it is important to realise that gifting to your children and grand-children will not necessarily ensure that the gift is outside of your estate. Inheritance Tax Planning can be considered a complex area, you should always seek professional financial advice. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and past performance of an investment is not necessarily a guide to future performance. For more information, please contact Kishan Devani (Consultant): 020 8953 3444 E-mail; Kishan Devani@hbfs.co.uk