‘There are no sectors that pay women more than men...’
Lauren Holden, of The Occasional Reporter, receives her award from Huddersfield Town commercial director Sean Jarvis (left) and Chris Lee, of Lucas Lee & Partners JOURNALIST who creates personalised newspaper “front pages” to help people celebrate their big occasions has won an award.
Lauren Holden, who runs online gifting brand The Occasional Reporter, is the latest winner of Huddersfield Town’s Shooting Stars award, in association with Lucas Lee & Partners.
Lauren, who has more than 13 years experience in journalism, set up the business in Huddersfield just a few years ago but has already created front pages for people as far away as the US and Australia.
She was presented with her award by HUDDERSFIELD accountancy firm has been shortlisted for two awards in the Yorkshire Accountancy Awards 2018.
Sheards Accountants, based at New North Road, is in the running for Independent Firm of the Year and Best Employer of the Year award.
The firm, which has been a local family business for more than 100 years, has a team of 18 and specialises in cloud accounting with a vast experience of products such as QuickBooks, Sage, Xero and Kashflow.
Director Carolyn Atkinson said: “This is an exciting time for us, as a local firm we never thought we would be shortlisted for awards in Town commercial director Sean Jarvis and Chris Lee, managing director at Lucas Lee & Partners.
Said Lauren: “I’m absolutely over the moon to be presented with this award. I love writing about people and their unique stories - and this accolade will help spread the word and allow me to continue to help people relive special days and fond memories.
“As a Huddersfield Town fan, I hope to be able to champion the players in a personalised newspaper page of their own, which will mark an exciting year for the town and team.” the same category as companies like Grant Thornton UK and Deloitte.
“It is a real honour to have got this far in the process and I am immensely proud of the whole team for the dedication and hard work they have demonstrated, enabling us to be one of Huddersfield’s most trusted accountants.”
Sheards’ services range from accounting, bookkeeping and tax services to business support and tax planning. It works with all types of businesses ad has extensive experience in a number of different sectors.
The Yorkshire Accountancy Awards will be held on Thursday, May 10, at New Dock Hall in Leeds. ONE year since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, a scheme supposed to created 3m new apprenticeships by 2020, worrying figures show there has been a 24% fall in the number of people starting in-work training.
According to the British Chamber of Commerce, the scheme is causing “confusion and frustration” among employers. Larger firms see it is an extra tax and smaller firms think the system is flawed by poor organisation and complicated systems.
The news comes at a difficult time for the scheme as independent think tank Reform recently reported that many high street firms are re-labelling low-skilled jobs as apprenticeships to gain subsidies for training.
The government’s official apprenticeship website shows a number of high street firms advertising for apprentices in what appear to be unskilled roles.
These include KFC recruiting an apprentice hospitality team member and Starbucks recruiting a barista apprentice to make and serve coffee in its branches.
Tom Richmond, senior research fellow at Reform, said: ”service sector apprenticeships could be of high quality, but many of these being approved did not fit the traditional or international definition of an apprenticeship.”
Last month was the deadline for companies with 250 or more employees to submit their gender pay gap data to the government and publish it online.
The statistics contain a wealth of information with key findings showing that 78% of companies pay men more than women and men also make up the majority of higher-paid jobs.
Surprisingly there are no sectors that pay women more than men with the construction and finance sectors reporting the widest pay gaps.
Although the figures show that there is still a large discrepancy between pay for men and women in the UK, it is good to see so many employers submit their data which, in turn, creates a more transparent environment for us to tackle the gender pay issue.