Member News

As well as Accounts, Taxation, Software and Practice Management, a large part of the training package in the first six months is dedicated to Business Development.

This is crucial training, during which the franchisee learns and develops their skills to win and retain business.  Actual performance to date is then measured against their business plan.

Sarah Robertson, TaxAssist Accountants Group Operations Director comments, “One of the most daunting areas for new franchisees is ‘Where will my clients come from?’

“During one of our regular ‘Discovery Days’ in Norwich, we speak to potential franchisees about how the thousands of leads created each year, which are immediately qualified and allocated to the network, are converted into fee paying clients.

“The 1-in-2 conversion rate of these leads takes work and dedication, and this added to our franchisees’ own activities including networking and self-promotion has helped to create some impressive results.”

Six months after they launch their business, new franchisees are asked to report on client acquisition and fees signed. TaxAssist received some great feedback from franchisees and they shared some impressive figures.

Sarah added: “The actuals vs. planned results are very rewarding and a testament to the TaxAssist Training Academy and the hard work of the franchisees.

“Even a franchisee who didn’t manage their planned Client Acquisition level still managed to far exceed their projected Fee Bank level!”

Anyone interested in learning more about TaxAssist Accountants should phone 0800 0188297 for an informal conversation before booking onto a Discovery Day. 

June 2017

Leading construction company Bateman Groundworks is looking for 12 new apprentices to join its growing workforce on sites across East Anglia.

Apprentices are the key to future growth of one of the UK’s most dynamic small businesses and it invests heavily in training to secure a skilled staff for decades to come.

The company, based at Little Plumstead, near Norwich, provides groundworks and civil engineering for blue chip house building companies across East Anglia. It currently employs more than 160 people, a growth of more than 30 from the start of the year, with a target workforce of 174 by the end of the year.

Richard Bateman, managing director, said apprentices taken on now would help to achieve desired growth beyond 2020.

The two-year apprenticeships will start in September.

Every apprentice spends four-week blocks of residential training at the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) centre at Bircham Newton, interspersed with on-site training.

 “The apprenticeship scheme, which has been tailored specifically for our needs, works extremely well for us and will give us the skilled workforce we need for the future”.

“We prefer our apprentices to have completed a two-year college course in a construction or engineering related qualification or to have a keen interest in construction before they join us.”

Bateman Groundworks, which marks its 20th anniversary in September, offers a clear career path for its apprentices.

The company’s pipeline of work includes 10-year developments. Its clients include large housebuilder clients Bovis Homes, Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon Homes as well as regional developers like Hopkins Homes and Cripps Development.

The estimated 10,000 new homes along Norwich’s £178m Northern Distributor Road (NDR) are future targets.

“We struggle to recruit skilled staff. We moved to Little Plumstead to make the company more attractive to potential employees. Being closer to Norwich widens the pool for a qualified workforce.”

This year, the company celebrated its first apprentice to be promoted through all 11 staff levels to become a site manager, now in charge of 12 people on site for a prime residential development in Norfolk.

Sam Allen is now managing a site at Round House Park, Cringleford, for Bovis Homes eight years after he started his first job there on its first phase after completing his apprenticeship.

The newest apprentice, Jack Thurbon, is learning slabbing, excavations, ledges, concrete and other skills after trying several courses at sixth form.

“I preferred the practical side of the work and enjoy being outside. The apprenticeship has made me more confident and skilled, and I am seeing more where my career can go.”

“I would like to progress and make my way up the ladder here and move into the engineering side.”

Bateman Groundworks teams are first on site to lay the foundations and prepare the site for the development.

To apply, visit www.batemangroundworks.co.uk

Our Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) team, working in close conjunction with the development and design departments at Vaccoda Design are pleased to announce that we are working with Psychology People on their website’s online status, position and Google rankings. A recruiter for a whole range of psychology-related jobs across a number of areas, Psychology People have been looking to expand themselves online and SEO has been a natural step forward for them.

They approached Vaccoda a few months ago with some development related issues that were quickly resolved, but then started looking at the swathes of benefits available through undertaking an SEO campaign. They currently list numerous psychology jobs for temporary, contract, locum and fulltime positions across the UK and have been looking at expanding both their client base as well as their candidate network.

Their website is built on the WordPress content management system (CMS) which has allowed us and Vaccoda’s teams full access to all the site elements we require. We started the project with a clean-up of Psychology People’s website from an SEO point of view. It has been very important that before progressing their site and its various offerings through a fresh strategy, that we ensure all is up to scratch.

This has included updating their CMS to the attest SEO-friendly standards and ensuring that all of their plugins and functionality in the back-end of the site is totally necessary. Next, we moved onto cleaning up what they already had on the with regards to the many pages of jobs and content throughout the site. We provided all of the necessary pages with unique meta titles and meta descriptions to allow Google to crawl [read] the site for ranking purposes.

We then went through their backlink profile to assess where all of their inbound links are coming from; some reputable sources, others not. We collated all of the spammy and potentially harmful link providers using one of our analysis tools and disavowed them from the backlink profile of the website. This is important as in recent times Google has devalued and even penalised sites that have many spammy sites referencing theirs.

Next, we performed in-depth and detailed keyword analysis to see what Psychology People were already ranking for and to identify some further targets for them to target through the SEO campaign. We have set up tracking to monitor their progress on Google and continue to monitor their progress.

Based on the keyword research we have already implemented some on-site content to increase their offering to Google to offer users more and to increase their online standings. We continue to carry out keyword research and content generation as the site is fairly thin for permanent (non-job) content. A link building strategy is also underway and we are working with several websites of strong authority to provide natural and SEO-friendly content that will aid Psychology People’s online standing and Google rankings.

We are moving towards assessing the overall sitemap of the site and the user navigation, experience and journeys; all of which need further work to improve the rankings of Psychology People online. We look forward to continuing what is already promising to be a very enjoyable and exciting project with all of the team at Psychology People.

Norwich Airport invites comment on masterplan Norwich Airport has published a draft masterplan setting out a vision for the airport’s continued growth over the next 30 years.

It explains how the airport can increase its significant contribution to the local economy while improving the experience of passengers and boosting East Anglia’s connectivity for business and leisure at home and abroad.

Passenger numbers exceeded 500,000 for the first time last year since 2008, and could rise to 1.4 million by 2045. Norwich Airport is worth some £70 million to the local economy and this could increase to £170 million in the same period. The draft masterplan outlines options for how the airport could grow in a sustainable way, and is now available for comment at local council offices and via www.norwichairport.co.uk/masterplan

Richard Pace, Managing Director of Norwich Airport, said: “The masterplan sets out the vision for the future development of Norwich Airport and its continued vital role in supporting our region’s economy.

“As well as projected passenger growth, the aim is to continue to be the transport hub for the offshore oil, gas and renewable industries for the Southern North Sea, and a centre of excellence for the maintenance, repair and overhaul of aircraft, closely linked to the International Aviation Academy Norwich in which we are a founding partner.

“We also address the implications for growth and the need to ensure that it is delivered in an incremental and sustainable way. By continuing to engage with the community we look forward to the airport further enhancing the connectivity and the social and economic fortunes of our region.”

The draft masterplan is open to consultation until 17th August 2017. Copy ends Notes to Editors About Norwich Airport Norwich Airport is part of Regional & City Airports, the airport management division of Rigby Group plc having been acquired in June 2014. The airport employs 250 people. The Airport offers direct scheduled flights to Amsterdam (with connections to over 600 destinations worldwide), Aberdeen, Alicante, Edinburgh, Exeter, Guernsey, Jersey, Malaga and Manchester.

Connections through Manchester enable passengers to reach Belfast, Glasgow, Isle of Man, Inverness and many more. Holiday flights operate to the Balearic and Canary Islands, Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Lapland.

The scheduled airlines and charter operators currently active from the Airport are: • KLM, Eastern Airways, bmi regional, Flybe and Loganair • Thomson, Balkan Holidays, Newmarket Holidays and Omega Holidays

The airport is a key hub for the southern North Sea offshore oil and gas industry. Four major offshore helicopter operators are based at the airport. These are Bristow, Bond, CHC and NHV. Last year 100,000 passengers travelled offshore from the Airport.

About Rigby Group plc

Rigby Group plc is the parent company for a portfolio of family-owned and highly successful businesses operating across Europe and the Middle East. Diversifying from its origins as a principally technology-led business, Rigby Group plc has evolved over four decades- through smart, strategic acquisitions – into a £2bn British success story employing over 7,500 people.

Rigby Group comprises six key divisions: Technology (SCC – Europe’s largest independent IT services business), Airports (Regional & City Airports, Norwich Airport, Exeter Airport and Coventry Airport), Hotels (the Eden Hotel Collection), Real Estate (Rigby & Rigby superprime property development, Rigby Group Real Estate including Imperial Park, Coventry), Aviation (British International Helicopters and Capital Air Ambulance), and Finance (Rigby Private Equity, Rigby Investments and Rigby Capital).

About Regional & City Airports (RCA)

Regional & City Airports (RCA) is Rigby Group’s highly-innovative airport management company. RCA owns and operates Norwich Airport, Exeter Airport and Coventry Airport, holds management contracts for Blackpool International Airport, City of Derry Airport and Lee on Solent airfield, and is actively building its portfolio of owned or managed airport assets across the next five years.

Regional airports are vitally important to the economic development of regions, not just in the UK but across the world. To survive and prosper, smaller regional airports need to cooperate and collaborate – enabling them to benefit from the economies of scale and sharing of best practice traditionally enjoyed by larger hub airports. This is the vision behind RCA. RCA has built a reputation as an efficient, safe and commercially-savvy airport operator, driving improvements to route development, commercial revenues, operating costs and capital investment in order to deliver a consistently sound commercial return.

As RCA grows it is increasingly able to leverage significant buying power and shared expertise. Already employing more than 650 people, RCA is on its way to becoming a leading player in the regional airport sector and is taking advantage of the lack of capacity at major hub airports in the UK to demonstrate how regional airports can ease the strain.

City College Norwich is delighted with a successful first year for its revamped Information Technology and Computing course, saying that the input of employers has been crucial in preparing its students for a wide range of tech job opportunities.     

Computing returned to the college’s course offering last September, following an overhaul which saw employers consulted on the skills they wanted to see in college leavers and the key technical areas they said were most important to include.

That input from 20 employers has directly shaped what students learn on the 1-year Level 3 course, ensuring that web development and mobile app development both featured as units on the course.

Employer involvement has extended beyond the set-up of the course to include industry experts giving workshops on key topics, employer-led careers talks, and employers coming in to the college to judge computing challenges. 

This engagement has helped students to better understand how IT projects are carried out in real business environments, as well as putting the students in direct contact with potential future employers.

The level of challenge on the course has been high, but its first cohort of students are on track to successfully pass the BTEC qualification.  Crucially, all are now set to enter the labour market – directly into jobs or apprenticeships – or to complete an optional second year of study to further their computing knowledge.

Computing student David Peck feels that the course has helped him become clearer about which area of IT he wants to work in, saying:

“I knew I was interested in tech and computing, but I wasn’t sure what specific area.  This course has shown me that web development is what I am interested in.  I have applied for a fair amount of jobs because of this course.”   

He continued, “I definitely think the course is relevant.  We’ve had contact with Aviva, who specifically contacted us because of the course that we are doing.  So a few of us have had interviews there for apprenticeships that they are running.”

Fellow student, Daniel Hayes, 20, added:

“A big part of it is definitely relevant to getting a job in IT.  They’ve taught us real world things, how projects go, how everything works within say web development or building an app.  They’ve taught us the steps in doing it, like how they would do it in a job.  So it’s made it very relevant, showing us the skills and what you need to do in a job.”  

Information Technology Lecturer Laura Flood, commented:

“The support we have had from employers to help us get the content for the course right has been fantastic.  Having employers and IT professionals coming in to contribute to sessions has added to the links to the world of work.  We are now looking to build on this success and we would love to hear from other local employers and tech professionals who would be interested in getting involved with the course next year.” 

To find out more about linking up with the Information Technology and Computing course at City College Norwich, contact Laura.Flood@ccn.ac.uk. 

June 2017 saw the first franchisees to graduate from the LEAD management and leadership course, which has been specifically designed for TaxAssist Accountants franchisees and senior practice staff.

Managing a practice requires more than the ability to manage processes, you also need to understand how to manage staff and clients. The LEAD Management Programme was designed to help franchisees and staff to develop their skills as a leader to help build and manage an effective team.

The feedback TaxAssist received from those attending the 2015/2017 LEAD Management course has been extremely positive:

• “Brilliant course, it has made a massive difference to how I support others and work overall.”
• “Having franchisees and staff on the same course was especially useful, comments and suggestions have been from quite different perspectives.”
• “I have loved this programme and feel that it has been very beneficial to my role.”
• “The course gave valuable ‘working on the business’ time.”
• “It has been an informative two years that has increased my confidence. It has been really good being able to meet up with other offices and share ideas and examples.”

Sarah Robertson, TaxAssist Accountants Group Operations Director comments, “Here at TaxAssist Accountants we pride ourselves on the quality of training and support we offer to our network.  We know that it is vital to get franchisees off to a great start early on in their business, but we also recognise that as franchises mature, franchisees’ thoughts turn to managing staff, exit strategy and succession planning, hence the introduction of the LEAD course. 

“The course has proven to be massively popular and the feedback has been fantastic. I’m pleased to say we are already planning our next course which is attracting a lot of interest.”

June 2017

JMS Group have had the pleasure of working with travel comparison site Medical Travel Compared for over two years, and were delighted when we won a pitch to create and produce their 2017 campaign.  Our idea was a little ambitious in the sense that we wanted a true holiday feel to the commercial, but were filming in Norfolk in Springtime, rather than Summer in Spain!  

The purpose of the commercial was to succinctly convey the ‘3 easy steps’ that it takes to compare and purchase travel insurance through MTC’s comparison website – even for those with a medical condition or being over 50.  We did this through the portrayal of a holiday maker in his 50’s enjoying choosing his swimwear and comparing it through a voice over to the choice of his insurance providers, following up with the 3 easy steps of using the site echoed by the 3 easy steps it takes for him to jump into the pool to truly get his holiday started!  

We were fortunate that the weather held out on the filming day, but some clever extra lighting, set design and careful colour grading made the most of the sunshine.  The concept, writing, casting, filming, editing, grading, soundtrack, clearance and delivery were all managed by JMS.  For your next holiday why not try comparing insurance at www.medicaltravelcompared.co.uk.

For more TV and Video work check out our website www.jms-group.com or call us on 01603 811855 for a chat about your project.

Professional recruitment specialists Pure has celebrated the milestone of supporting over 20,000 candidates across the East of England to find their next career role.

The placement of Helen Turner, who has started her new role as Head of Group Reporting at Cambridge University, marked the 20,000th role successfully filled by Pure and we are delighted to have assisted so many people to secure their next step on the professional career ladder.

Pure, which has offices in Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich and Chelmsford, was originally founded in 2002 with the key aim of supporting the region’s businesses at the same time as helping candidates at every step of their career. Today it specialises in Accountancy, Financial Services, IT, Human Resources, Marketing and Office Support recruitment solutions at all levels, including board level appointments through its specialist Executive division.

David Culley, Associate Director at Pure, visited Helen in her new place of work to present her a hamper filled with special treats to celebrate the milestone.

He said: “To have supported 20,000 people to find their next career step, and to have worked in partnership with organisations across the region to find these high-calibre candidates, is a fantastic achievement. Pure is committed to contributing to the growth of our region, as well as making a difference to people’s lives, and this milestone shows just one of the ways in which we achieve this. We wish Helen all the best in her new role and look forward to continuing to support thousands more local people and organisations by providing high quality recruitment and advice.”

Pure has supported Cambridge University with its recruitment needs for more than 10 years and has placed over 30 candidates in positions across the university and its colleges, ranging from HR through to accountancy and financial services roles.

Steve Hutson, Assistant Director of Finance at Cambridge University, said: “We have had a very productive relationship with Pure for a number of years. The main contributor to this is they have taken the time to understand our culture and only put forward candidates with the right profile. Congratulations on reaching such a milestone, we look forward to a continuing fruitful partnership.”

As well as having successfully supported 20,000 professional job seekers since it was founded, Pure has also raised over £129,000 for local charities and it has created several initiatives to help businesses to continue attracting and retaining the best people. These include the Best Employers Eastern Region initiative which celebrates the region’s best employers and assists organisations to create inspiring, innovative and engaging places to work.

In close collaboration with the design and development teams at Vaccoda Design, we are glad to announce that we are working on Radiant Kitchen’s website. Radiant Kitchens are a North London kitchen showroom and experts in fitting a wide range of kitchens and relevant installations, based in Enfield. Mixing high quality kitchens and excellent customer service, they have built up a loyal and admirable customer base across not just North London, but Greater London as a whole.

We were approached by Radiant Kitchens as they were not seeing much online exposure and therefore business. they have a WordPress supported website that looks and feels sleek and easy. However, they found themselves increasingly on the fringes of the kitchen industry. A very competitive area, Radiant Kitchens’ approach has been to look at the targeting of local searches and pushing specific products that they offer.

An advantage that the team at Radiant Kitchens have is that unlike many other companies with websites, theirs is not in a dire position and rather than having previously undertaken black-hat Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), negatively impacting their online presence, they have simply not ever undergone any significant SEO work until working with us.

What we Have Done So Far

Since starting a few months ago with Radiant Kitchens and the teams at Vaccoda Design we have implemented and upgraded a number of SEO aspects that needed attention. This has included optimising their meta titles, meta descriptions and alt-texts. Having had their meta data cleaned up for the benefit of search engines, Radiant Kitchens’ website is easier for Google and others to crawl [read] and rank. Furthermore, as a website with a large visual element to what they do; selling and showcasing kitchens and related products Google Image Search is crucial to what they do. By optimising and updating all of their website’s alt-text tags, their visual elements are now available on Google Image results.

We have also undertaken a link strategy of two elements. Initially, we removed all spammy links from their backlink profile to ensure all referring links are clean and Google and SEO-friendly. This has included removing them from several spammy directories and link-farms. By cleaning up their backlink profile, the site is afforded a higher level of credibility and is deemed as ‘genuine’ and ‘reliable,’ having only undertaken white hat, clean SEO.

We have also embarked on a structured content strategy. This includes ensuring their main services and products, such as Siemens Kitchen Appliances have their own dedicated pages of content-rich information and SEO-friendly practices. Furthermore, additional services and supplementary products for kitchens such as hot taps and others are important. This has entailed extensive keyword research to understand user data and keyword volumes to inform our overall targeting.

The Results

Radiant Kitchens are still in the early stages of their SEO campaign and much of the ‘big’ results are yet to manifest as Google crawls and re-ranks the site accordingly. However, Radiant Kitchens have already found themselves pushed up to the first position on Google for ‘Kitchens in Enfield,’ allowing them to capture their local area.

We look forward to continuing the work with radiant Kitchens together with the teams at Vaccoda Design.

The TaxAssist Direct Group, based in Norwich, and which runs the largest network of accountants specialising in providing services to small businesses, has announced that it will be strengthening its Board of Directors when Daren Moore FCCA joins its Executive Board of Directors in April 2018.

Daren has spent his whole career in the accounting arena, having worked his way up from accounts trainee to a member of the Management Board of Price Bailey LLP, where he has an outstanding track record of achievement.

“I have worked alongside The TaxAssist Direct Group and its TaxAssist Accountants network for many years and am delighted to have the opportunity to join their Executive Board,” said Daren. “At a time of unprecedented change in our industry, I believe the TaxAssist Accountants network is ideally placed to benefit, utilising its unique position in the market and what I see as its key strengths – its vast number of local offices and shops around the UK and overseas (Ireland and Australia with plans for Canada and USA in the near future), people, relationships and brand. I’m looking forward to being part of the team and contributing to its ongoing growth and success.”

Karl Sandall, Group Chief Executive Director of The TaxAssist Direct Group, said: “As part of our strategic succession planning, we had a wish list of individuals to join the Board. We needed an individual who would suit the business of being a franchisor, combined with a solid knowledge of the accounting and taxation industry, as well as being immediately respected for their ability to communicate and be trusted.  Daren Moore was at the top of that wish list. 

“To secure an individual of Daren’s calibre and experience, is a huge coup for The TaxAssist Direct Group of companies and bodes well for the future direction and development of our fast expanding business both in the UK and Internationally.”

June 2017

Freebridge Chief Executive wins Inspirational Leader of the Year at national awards.

Freebridge Community Housing are delighted to announce that their Chief Executive, Tony Hall, has won in the Inspirational Leader of the Year category at the Housing Heroes Awards.

The awards ceremony was held on 26 June, during the opening ceremony of the Housing 2017 conference in Manchester, Europe’s largest housing event.

The nomination focused on the opportunities and support Tony has provided across the business, cultivating an open and inclusive atmosphere within Freebridge. Supporting statements from a number of employees, attesting to Tony’s inspirational leadership, were included in the nomination.

Tony has spent almost 30 years working at a senior level in social housing and local governments all over the country.

Prior to his appointment as Chief Executive at Freebridge Community Housing, Tony had been a Corporate Director with the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk, and lead on the voluntary transfer of the housing stock over to Freebridge in 2006.

Freebridge Chief Executive, Tony Hall, said: “It came as a massive surprise when I found out that my colleagues had nominated me for this award, but to actually win is incredible.

“I am lucky to be in a job that I really enjoy and receiving this award is possibly on of the biggest honours I could have.”

Tudor Lodge’s SEO team are proud to announce that we are now working with Secure Site on their website (https://www.securesiteuk.co.uk/). Secure site provides a host of services for vacant properties and those that fall to squatters. Amongst their services they offer squatter eviction, waste removal, hazardous waste clearance services and many other related services such as security fencing and hoarding.

We were approached by the new development team at Secure Site who have in the past worked with a variety of parties to try and improve the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) status of the site and increase their Google rankings. However, they had yet to see any real results manifest as a result of any previous SEO work. We have now taken over the project and are facing their online challenges including:

·       Updating their content management system (CMS) for SEO to allow the site to be crawled efficiently

·       Removing old and outdated practices from their website such as meta keywords and duplicate meta data sets

·       Ensuring the company is viewed by Google as being a company rather than an old-fashioned blog

·       Ensuring that only the cleanest link building is undertaken

We are also in close communication with their development team, working on the overall build and user experience of the website as well as various crucial SEO ranking factors.

What We Have Done

Working with the team at Secure Site and their development team we have already implemented many updates and improvements which are starting to have the desired, positive effects. We have removed old practices and are working on updating the site to a much more modern and SEO-friendly state. This has included adding a new XML sitemap for Google to read, adding unique meta titles and descriptions for each page, securing the site with an SSL certificate (https) and working through their crawl errors to ensure a seamless user experience.

Secure Sie have already seen their site achieve top 5 positions for a number of key and competitive terms as a result of the progress made thus far and we expect results to only continue to improve over the coming weeks and months as a result of the work we are carrying out and will be doing.

We will be working on their site content, link profile, site speed and mobile user experience and we look forward to continuing our budding relationship with all of the team at Secure Site.