Feature
One monthly fee takes the admin’ headaches away
New crime busting scheme launches on Brackmills
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new Business Watch scheme has been launched on Brackmills – all part of the estate’s commitment to cracking down on crime and anti-social behaviour. The scheme, set up by Brackmills Business Improvement District in partnership with Northamptonshire Police, Action Fraud and Neighbourhood Watch, will play a key role in the BID’s continued efforts to nurture a safe and crime-free environment. Joining is free, with members set to receive messages, alerts, appeals and crime prevention advice from the BID and other partners. The scheme has been designed to: l Promote a safe and crime-free environment for businesses; l Equip businesses with the information and tools they need to combat fraud and cyber crime; l Create links with the local policing team and the estate’s dedicated Police Community Support Office; l Bring local businesses together to prevent
Paul Hurst, Brackmills’ dedicated police comunity support officer and solve crime; l Raise awareness of local crime, its impact on businesses and how to tackle it; l Encourage the sharing of information. The Brackmills Business Watch scheme will be run via the Northamptonshire Neighbourhood Alert system, a messaging service run by Northamptonshire Police. The platform allows frontline police officers to send alert messages direct from their mobile devices to local people and businesses.
To join, Brackmills’ staff and employers should contact the BID’s designated PCSO Paul Hurst at Paul.Hurst@northants.pnn.police.uk. Include your name, email address, business name and business postcode.
Life-saving defibrillators set to be installed on Brackmills
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ife-saving defibrillators are being installed on Brackmills Industrial Estate, with training sessions set to be run by First Responders from this month. Brackmills Business Improvement District has invested in five
defibrillators, two of which will be installed outside Proaction Martial Arts & Fitness in Osyth Court and Startech.com on Gowerton Road. An additional three will be installed in the coming weeks but before the locations are decided
Brackmills businesses that already have defibrillators have been asked to register the details. This is to ensure a good spread across the whole estate. Brackmills businesses are asked to register any defibs they currently have at www.thecircuit.uk
Substance misuse: Having the conversation with employees
Instead of paying different professionals a small fortune in fees, you can now pay one low, fixed monthly fee to a single organisation and have them take on your administration overhead for, typically, less than the cost of a single employee. “We set up Carlton DeVere specifically to help start-ups and small businesses to grow and flourish, unencumbered by the red tape, bureaucracy and administration overhead that has the potential to sink a business,” says Carlton Devere managing partner Catherine Eyers. “The services provided by Carlton DeVere allow our clients to get on with the business of running their business. The upshot is that business owners have more time to do other things, spend more time with their families, are less stressed and have a higher Catherine Eyers quality of life.” here is no hiding the fact that it has How is an organisation like Carlton DeVere been a terrible couple of years for able to provide accounting, legal, marketing, business, thanks to the pandemic. PR and web design services for a fraction of Many have gone out of business, the cost of other third-party providers? but many people, prompted by working from “Over the years, we have built state-ofhome, furlough and redundancy, have been the-art software systems, which allow us spurred on to start their own businesses. to automate much of the administration of Perhaps you did that, or perhaps you are start-ups and small businesses, where the thinking of doing that. You may already have complexity of administration is not too started a small business and are struggling to demanding,” says Catherine. “We even developed a software front-end cope with all of the administration needed. You may have come to the realisation that that clients can use which automatically builds a large part of your business is involved sales and purchase figures so that we can carry in dealing with government red tape out credit control for them at a fraction - accounts, tax returns, VAT, of the frankly ludicrous charges Companies House filings and levied by factoring companies. We set up so on. “Unlike them and recruitment specifically to help firms, who charge large The UK has one of the most complex tax systems start-ups and small commissions, we see the work in the world. Then there is businesses to grow involved in collecting money marketing, PR, recruitment, and recruiting staff on behalf and flourish web design and other things of clients as a task which takes that do not represent income, pretty much the same amount rather overhead, expenditure and of time irrespective of the amounts time-consuming additional work. involved, which is why we can charge low, There is a need for decent, low-cost support monthly, fixed fees with no hidden extras for start-up and small businesses run by at all. We can even do basic legal work like professionals. We would all love to farm out employment contracts, terms of sale and even our accounts, legal, marketing, PR, website litigation, again, for a low, fixed monthly fee design, IT support, recruitment and other with no additional charges. administrative headaches to professional “There is also a real-time portal that clients third parties who charge upwards of £250 can log into to see how much money is being per hour. collected from their customers, the progress of The reality is that we simply cannot afford statutory documents with Companies House, that, which is where a support organisation HMRC, the progress of recruitment, legal like Carlton DeVere comes in. work, marketing and so on.”
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FREE webinar for Brackmills based businesses. January 13, 12.30pm-2pm
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quarter of all work-related accidents are linked to alcohol. Employees are coming into work with issues that can be a risk for workplace. This webinar explores the importance of destigmatising these issues. Many people are too afraid to say have a problem because they believe they will be at risk of losing their job. In this skills webinar Aquarius Life will: • Help employers to develop a practical understanding of what constitutes an effective substance misuse risk assessment in work; • Share ways in which employers can start an
intervention conversation with an employee • Help employers to become aware of a person’s readiness to change; • Introduce motivational interviewing skills proven to support someone that uses substances; • Teach you how to make an effective referral. Register at: www.brackmillstimetotalk. eventbrite.co.uk. As part of our commitment to supporting businesses on the estate, Brackmills BID works with Aquarius Life which means all estate businesses can now access free training and policy support.
www.brackmillsindustrialestate.co.uk 4
Business Times
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January 2022
n Carlton DeVere wants to change the way small businesses are supported in the UK. Why pay third party specialists a large chunk of your hard-earned income to do relatively simple but time-consuming things when one third party can do all of this for you at a much, much lower cost. Carlton DeVere, in effect, becomes your business partner. FindTimes out small moreaddat2019.qxp_Layout www.carltondevere.co.uk. Business 1 17/08/2021 13:16 Page 7
NIGHTS ofOLD UK/IE/EU PALLET DISTRIBUTION +44(0)1536 533544 sales@knightsofoldgroup.com www.knightsofoldgroup.com
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