Grant Thornton Technical Update Seminar

A 3 part seminar:

Overview of The Future of UK Financial Reporting Standards
Presented by Michelle Sansom of the UK Accounting Standards Board

Specifics relating to the future of UK Financial Reporting Standards
Presented by Philip Allen, Assurance Senior Manager at Grant Thornton

Outsourcing and Rightsourcing
Presented by Mike Morrison, CEO and James Bowkes, FD, ISG Technology

1.5 hours

Project Management Masterclass

Professional Body Cross Sector Networking Event.  Included presentation by Nick Lake, former Director of the UK Project Management Institute (good speaker, worth seeing again).  Intro by Laura Dziaszyk of CMI (poor speaker, avoid if she is main speaker).

Joint event with CIMA, Brighton Business School, ACCA, CIM, CIPD, CII, IFA, CMI and IOD.

Points to follow up:

1. Cost/benefits of formal project mngt qualification such as Prince2.
2. The grief cycle (but with applications to many other 'people issues').
3. Motivating Volunteers by Helen Little (because most people working in projects, or with interims, are not direct reports and need to be motivated as if they are volunteers.

Network notes:

First met: People from HMRC, Sussex Police (90 day consultation), someone ex PWC just back from Thailand.

Renewed contacts with Adam Shields, Michael Ramshaw and Judith Newton. 

2 hours for CPD purposes.

Grant Thornton webinar about forthcoming changes to UK GAAP

Attended Grant Thornton webinar about forthcoming changes to UK GAAP (accounting standards). The final standard will not be issued until 2011 and will not come into force until 2014 or 2015.

The webinar was recoded and can be viewed by following this link.

When the new rules come become effective, organisations will have three choices of accounts: public bodies and those with public shareholdings will use IFRS. Smaller entities will be able to use FRSSE and those in the middle will use the new FRSME.

Key points about FRSME:

• Fixed assets will be measured at cost, less accumulative depreciation and any impairments not revalued
• Goodwill will be written off over five years and other intangibles over 10 years unless a very good reason is given.

Grant Thornton's summary of the main points is available by following the link below:

How will moving from UK GAAP to the FRSME from

July 2013 impact on my company’s accounts?

Management Dilemma: The Rule of 98/2 - BusinessWeek

An interesting article which ties in with some of the differences I have sometimes seen between the private and public sectors. In the private sector, they can get rid of the the 2% (and they often do, at a cost) but in the public sector the rules prevent this - therefore more rules are created to control the 2%. The 98% are then constrained by the new rules (at a cost) while the 2% ignore them or get round them.

Management Dilemma: The Rule of 98/2 - BusinessWeek

Huddle webinar about tasks

Huddle has just added task functionality to their team working software and this was a webinar to talk about the new functionality.  I see a big future for tools like this and Yammer that allow teams to work together more closely.  The session was recorded and is available here.

Free Huddle and Yammer accounts are available but you have to pay when the data stored hits limits.

Agency Workers Directive

Read this article. 

Main points are that from Oct 2011 agency workers in UK to get same rights as permanent employees doing same job after 12 weeks unless Ltd Co or self employed.  Consultation still ongoing.