Member News

More than 500 people representing Franchisees, their families, TaxAssist staff and business partners gathered at the 5* Celtic Manor Resort for the TaxAssist Accountants annual exhibition, conference and gala evening on 1st April. 

Following a well-attended and busy exhibition in the morning, the Directors of TaxAssist Accountants presented in the afternoon, highlighting good network growth and performance, which included hitting £4 million sales in one month, double digit fee bank growth year on year and the opening of the 200th TaxAssist shop.

The event also saw TaxAssist announce two major new initiatives – a national partnership with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and helping small business clients adopt online accounting.

James Mattam, Group Business Development Director comments, “As we’ve recognised for some time, TaxAssist Accountants and FSB are a natural fit and share common goals and being able to announce it just as the Government starts to roll out its Making Tax Digital initiative could not have been more timely.”

Newton Abbot based Franchisee Tess Blayton thoroughly enjoyed the event commenting, “I would like to say a big thank you for another fantastic conference.  I thought it was the best yet.  The exhibition was very busy, which in no way detracted from the usefulness – it created a buzz which continued throughout the day.

“The whole day and evening was a reassuring reminder that we are part of a big family.  Something that I always remember from my days on the initial training course, although this year seemed to reinforce that feeling even more.”

Sarah Robertson, Group Operations Director comments, “It was fantastic to catch up with so many of the network and to reveal such positive news about TaxAssist and future initiatives.

“A key message we wanted to put across, was that with our thorough approach to researching, reviewing and recommending new software and apps, as well as educating and communicating to clients about the major changes ahead, we will ease the workload for franchisees and make life as time and cash efficient as possible for them and their clients.

“I’m sure all who attended will have left feeling confident that by being a part of the TaxAssist network, they are in safe hands in this fast-changing digital age.”

Guests were treated to black tie Gala Evening entertainment, which included star acts Nina Conti and impressionist John Culshaw.  

April 2017

The former Probation Office, on Purfleet Quay, has been bought for an undisclosed sum by Anthony and Jeanette Goodrich, who own the Bank House Hotel, on nearby King’s Staithe Square.

The couple, who also own the Rose and Crown at Snettisham, are pledging to transform the building.

Mr Goodrich said: “In the years we have owned The Rose & Crown and Bank House we have built up thriving bar, restaurant and accommodation businesses. 

“We plan to develop the Probation Office, which is located across the square from Bank House, create more bedrooms, a function room and a café/bar.

“This is another good news story for King’s Lynn. The development of the Probation Offices will further enhance the ongoing King’s Lynn waterfront redevelopment scheme, add to the buzz of the historic riverside area, and will create jobs.”

The former probation office stands at the heart of historic Lynn. It is next door to the Custom House and a stone’s throw from the Hanse House and St George’s Guildhall.

Strong Investment in Food Manufacturing Drives Uplift in Local Jobs

Food Manufacturing hires in the East of England are up by more than two thirds in the first three months of 2017 compared to the final three months of 2016, the Cooper Lomaz Employment Indicator can reveal. It can also reveal that hires are up by a third compared to the same period in 201, which bucks the trend of the other core technical sectors, which are largely down Year on Year.

The availability of highly-skilled candidates within Food Manufacturing has been the biggest challenge within the sector, with 11% fewer candidates actively looking for work at the start of 2017 compared to the start of 2016. However, there has been a significant uplift compared to the end of 2016, which is a common trend across all technical sectors due to a lack of recruitment activity over the Christmas period.

Due to significant acquisitions, mergers and investment in the region we’ve seen that the amount of advertised jobs in the Food Manufacturing sector is up 28% over the same period last year, and 31% compared to the last three months of 2016.

Cooper Lomaz Commercial Director Simon Brown says “Currently despite the fact that we’re seeing a shortage of food manufacturing candidates, it is a great time for food manufacturers in the East of England. It’s turbulent at times with recent mergers and acquisitions, but many of the smaller firms have been able to expand.”

News in other sectors suggest that there is balance and buoyancy, despite hiring within the IT sector being down by 32% compared to the same period of last year. This is largely due to the severe shortage of candidates, which were also down 32% in this period.

Why Cooper Lomaz compiles the Employment Indicator:

Cooper Lomaz compiles the Employment Indicator at the end of each 3 month period to provide free valuable insight for businesses and candidates about how the employment market in East Anglia is performing.

Cooper Lomaz believes that this information is important to the regional economy and therefore should be freely available so that local businesses and candidates know what employability is like in their sectors.

We are pleased to announce that we are working closely together with the design, branding and development teams at Vaccoda Design (https://vaccodadesign.com/). Vaccoda are based in Bromley on the cusp of Kent and Bromley in South London. Comprising a team of designers, developers and web experts, we are fast developing a strong and mutually fruitful partnership between our two companies.

Why we Partnered

With Tudor Lodge Consultants growing every day, it is important that we maintain the high standards that are now expected of us and that we offer everything that clients want. While we predominantly offer Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services, we have increasingly found ourselves being asked about design and development services as well as branding and other technical requirements.

Whilst the team at Tudor Lodge Consultants have extensive knowledge around these areas, it is important that we can offer those services. Experts like the teams at Vaccoda have many years of experience in these areas and have practiced these over the years to home their skills. Furthermore, having been in close contact with Vaccoda over the years through various projects, we have seen the high quality of their work and are happy to now be working with them across various projects.

Tudor Lodge Consultants are also well-known north of the river in London, and have been looking for a presence south of it. There are a great deal of businesses in Vaccoda’s local area who now see them as the ‘go to people’ for all things web, design and development and it has therefore been a natural transition to partnering with them.

How do SEO and Web Design/ Development go Together?

SEO and the services offered by Vaccoda (web design, development and branding to name but a few) all work together daily across the internet. To achieve good SEO and be found ahead of competition, websites must not only perfect the aspects of ‘pure SEO’ such as having optimised meta data and SEO-friendly content, but they must also be good for user experience and engagement.

This therefore plays into web services. After all, having a website that is found but that doesn’t engage or maintain users is not desirable. Conversely, the most beautifully designed websites need to be found, otherwise their designs and all the hard work entailed is effectively wasted. Therefore, working with Vaccoda on many of their existing projects and with Vaccoda working with us on many of our new and existing projects is a seamless partnership which we very much look to continue.

City centre charity, OPEN Youth Trust (OPEN), whose mission is to make a positive difference to the lives of young people in Norfolk has appointed Emily Groves, Managing Director of Indigo Swan to its Board of Trustees.  

Emily founded Indigo Swan, an energy consultancy business, in January 2010. Despite being founded at the height of the recession, Indigo Swan  has gone from strength to strength winning numerous awards including Energy Consultancy of the Year in 2016 and also seeing Emily named as the Institute of Directors’ Young Director of the Year for the East of England in 2015. 

OPEN’s Chief Executive, John Gordon-Saker said: “Emily recently gave a very thought provoking talk at the TEDxNorwichED Inspiring Generations event, which was sponsored by OPEN and we are very excited to have her expertise on our Board of Trustees. She is young, energetic, well connected and innovative and has made an immediate impact on our energy bills and has introduced us to software that will help us streamline the way we run the charity.” 

Speaking of her appointment Emily said: “It is the responsibility of every single one of us to help create a positive future, and that future is inside the minds and imaginations of our young people today.  So, let’s encourage more, let’s inspire more and let’s give them the right environment and tools to make it a reality.”

The Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) team at Tudor Lodge Consultants are proud to announce that we are now working with the exciting team at Artisanne (https://www.artisanne.co.uk). Artisanne is a business and humanitarian project founded by two sisters, Emma and Elizabeth; sourcing and providing unique handwoven baskets from various regions in Senegal, West Africa.

All products sold by Artisanne are bought directly from the producers in Africa, maximising what they earn from their businesses and avoiding any middle-men. All goods are handmade by locals in numerous villages in Senegal to high standards. Each basket has its own unique character, with great designs.

Artisanne approached us as they need to increase their online rankings and make their offerings a lot clearer and discoverable to the online community. Their website is based on the content management system (CMS), Shopify, built for large e-commerce platforms.

We have therefore drawn up a bespoke strategy for them, taking the strengths and merits of Shopify into account to ensure the site sees the best results possible. Initially, we have looked at the link profile of Artisanne and identified a few requirements. We are therefore embarking on clean, SEO-friendly link building to increase the website’s profile and online domain authority.

We have also been carrying out extensive keyword research and competitor analysis to find keywords of focus that best represent the offerings and products of the Artisanne brand. We have been working to update all meta titles and meta descriptions across the site to ensure that Google and other search engines can read [crawl] the website and rank it as highly as possible. We have also set up a tracking system to be able to track the progress of individual search terms for the Artisanne website.

In addition, we will be working with the content team at Artisanne to produce original and SEO-friendly content for the website throughout all pages including the homepage, information pages and new pages that will be built and populated. All of these pages will make use of SEO-best practices.

Artisanne has already seen positive movement with numerous keywords moving towards page 1 of Google already. We look forward to further success with all the team at Artisanne.

Great Yarmouth Borough Council has approved its first grants to help businesses and social enterprises improve their town centre frontages, with a total of £8,500 agreed in relation to five successful applicants.

Under the Town Centre Shopfront Improvement Scheme, which remains open for applications, eligible applicants can ask for grants of up to £3,000 each to help fund shopfront renovation, decoration, new signage and/or replacement of historic features including lighting.

Initially £60,000 is being made available through the project, part of the borough council’s wider efforts through its Town Centre Initiative to make Great Yarmouth town centre, a top public priority, more attractive to shoppers, residents and investors.

Since the scheme was announced in November, five businesses have submitted valid applications, which were agreed last night by the Economic Development Committee. The businesses must cover 25 per cent of the total cost themselves.

The following successful applicants have six months to complete works and submit a claim form, with the grants made once the claim has been accepted.

·        Ryan Lawes, of Gentleman’s Headquarters, a new barber shop in Regent Street – £1,950 to help fund new signage and window decoration to further enhance the shop, which he has already recently completed painting.

·        Sharron Hanks and Jonathan Hanks, of the Sock Stop, in Regent Road – £3,000 towards improvements including replacing an old outdated, shopfront which does not have disabled access, adding a new awning, new signage, roller security doors and repainting. This business was affected by last summer’s fire in Regent Road.

·        Richard Marks, of Woodcraft, in the Victoria Arcade – £1,645.23 towards new signage, lighting and a new window display. This trader relocated recently to Victoria Arcade after his previous trading premises was destroyed by last summer’s fire in Regent Road.

·        Stephen Cook, of Branded Toys, in the Victoria Arcade – £891 towards additional lighting to window displays to help improve the shop’s visibility and advertising that it is open. This trader relocated recently to Victoria Arcade after his previous trading premises was destroyed by last summer’s fire in Regent Road. 

·        Mike Wallis, of Wallis’ Wonders, in the Victoria Arcade – £1,026 to help with providing spotlighting for both windows to help enhance the shop and attract customers.

Cllr Barry Coleman, chairman of the economic development committee, said: “I am so pleased that this grant scheme is already doing its intended job: acting firstly as a catalyst for real improvements that will enhance the town centre shopping experience, and secondly as an incentive for private sector investment, to help grow the economy and help turn that virtuous cycle of confidence and growth.

“These first successful applications cover a real diversity of businesses and premises in different parts of the town centre, including some historic premises – and it is particularly great that the borough council is able to further help some of the businesses which were affected by last summer’s fire in Regent Road.

“There is, however, still money in the pot and we would like to hand out more grants in the coming months, so if you are an eligible business or social enterprise then please do follow suit and submit a well thought out application, because now is an ideal time to invest.”

Richard Marks, of Woodcraft, said: “Our previous trading location of 25 years, the Indoor Market, was sadly destroyed in the fire in August, but we have made a fresh start here in the Victoria Arcade and are hoping to bring our customers with us.

“Together with our own funds, this fabulous grant from the borough council will pay for shopfront improvements that will help us promote our shop and products, in addition to enhancing the historic architecture of the arcade.”

Ryan Lawes, of Gentleman’s Headquarters, said: “I am most thankful to the borough council for this grant. I’m 21 years old, just starting out in business, and have invested significantly in transforming what was an empty unit into a new facility, so this contribution to improving my frontage is most welcome and will also help to increase custom and footfall in the town centre.”

Application forms, guidance and a map showing the area covered by the scheme, are available by visiting https://www.enterprisegy.co.uk/shop-front, emailing enterpriseGY@great-yarmouth.gov.uk or by calling enterpriseGY on 0800 458 0146. Applications close on March 31, 2018, or sooner if funding is spent before this date.

Alan Boswell Group, one of the UK’s leading insurance brokers and financial advisers, today announced its acquisition of Sutcliffe Solloway & Company Limited (trading as Sutcliffe Insurance Brokers), expanding its business into Lincolnshire.

The move sees the Norwich-based group’s gross written premium figure rise from £85million to £90million. Since its formation in 1982, the company has grown to become one of the largest independent insurance brokers in the UK, with strong capital reserves and more than 50,000 clients across the country.

The acquisition will also see a further 25 members of staff, based at offices in Boston and Grimsby, join the group, bringing the total number of employees to 325.

The news follows the acquisition of S-Tech Insurance Services in Cambridge in late-2016, and the launch of its risk management arm last month.

With a heritage dating back to 1977, Sutcliffe arranges a wide range of commercial insurance products, with specialisms in the marine trade and heavy industry, as well as providing personal lines including home, car and landlord insurance.

Says Executive Chairman Alan Boswell: “We’re pleased to make this announcement as we head into a new financial year. The Group has been growing at a steady rate and Sutcliffe Insurance Brokers is a natural fit for our continuing expansion, offering services complementary to our own.”

Sutcliffe Insurance Brokers’ Managing Director Mike Kirman further comments: “This is a fantastic opportunity for Sutcliffe. Not only does it enhance the range of services we offer to existing clients – including risk management — but it also brings the stability and support of a larger group to the business.”

Welcome… In this month’s newsletter we look at; – Norfolk Carbon Charter Launch – We Have an App! – No.8 Virtual Tour – Feedback From Our Clients – Your Own Place Video Launch

Norfolk Carbon Charter Official Launch

The Norfolk Carbon Charter was officially launched in Norfolk on Tuesday 7th March at No.8. No.8 Thorpe Road holds a Bronze Carbon Charter and the RedCat team have for a number of years.

The Carbon Charter recognises environmental commitments and progress, and has been specifically designed to be of practical benefit to businesses.

For more information on the launch here

Thank you for your interest… Please don’t hesitate to contact us about anything No.8 related; you’ll find our contact details below.

Sarah, Richard, Mitchell, Lauren & John

A team from professional recruitment specialists Pure braved lots of mud and obstacles to complete the Only The Brave charity race in aid of the East of England Air Ambulance on Sunday (2 April).

The four-strong team from the recruitment agency’s Cambridge office looked anything but pure by the time they had completed the tough course at Elveden Estate, near Thetford Forest. However, they all agreed it was worth it to help support such fantastic cause.

The Pure team consisted of Caroline Batchelor, Gemma Pritchard-Jones, David Atkin and Ellie Steinfeldt. They all completed the five-mile course, which this year was bigger and muddier than ever before. Between them they ran, crawled, climbed and scrambled their way to the finish line, tackling obstacles including mud pools, water slides, climbing walls, piles of hay bales and monkey bars.

Caroline Batchelor, Associate Director at Pure, said: “The words mud and mayhem definitely spring to mind! The organisers certainly lived up to their promise of making the course as gruelling as possible. But it was a great team bonding experience and lots of fun. This is a major fundraising event for the publicly-funded air ambulance. We’re all extremely proud to have played a small part in helping to raise the £11million needed to keep these life-saving helicopters in the sky.”

The Only The Brave event has been inspired by the East Anglian Air Ambulance’s pilots, doctors, patients and families. The air ambulance flies 365 days a year, taking highly skilled medical teams to people who have been unfortunate enough to be involved in accidents or medical emergencies in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire. The crews need to be brave, and overcome physical and emotional obstacles every single day.

Becky Wilson and Clare Fuller from Pure also gave up their time to be part of the team of volunteers which helped to ensure everything ran smoothly on the day.

As well as the entry fee to take part, the Pure team has raised a further £300 in sponsorship, with more donations still being received. 

An empowering and creative new company with the purpose of ‘making people happy’ has been launched today (3rd April).

The Engaging People Company has been set up with the aim of transforming employee and customer satisfaction through inspiring and targeted engagement and communications activities.

The company has been established by Michelle Gant, who was previously Director of Engagement for West Norfolk-based housing provider Freebridge Community Housing.

Michelle said: “I passionately believe that empowering and supporting satisfaction leads to business success. Because happy employees feel able to be the best they can be and happy customers will want to work with companies time and time again.”  

The company, which also offers support around wellbeing as well as facilitation, coaching and writing, is built on Michelle’s personal values of creativity, authenticity, being kind – and having fun.

She added: “I want to make a difference. And I am truly committed to and inspired by the ethos and values of The Engaging People Company to do so.”

The Engaging People Company can be found at https://engaging-people.co.uk/ and @engagepeopleco

Pure is offering the chance for one aspiring female leader, working at a deserving organisation in the East of England, to receive a part-funded place on its highly successful Women’s Leadership Programme starting in June.

Applications for the sponsored place are open to female managers and Directors working within social enterprises, not-for-profit organisations, early stage start-ups and SMEs across Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire.

The place on the programme has been sponsored by the Blossom Charity, which supports women in the East of England to be the best they can be. The aim is to make this course more accessible to local organisations which may not have had the budget to develop their talent pipeline in this way.

Lynn Walters, Director at Pure, said: “We’re delighted that Bridget McIntyre, founder and trustee of the Blossom Charity, has chosen to sponsor a place for the third year running. Bridget has been a regular guest speaker at our Women in Leadership events. Having held several Board positions, including UK Chief Executive of Royal Sun Alliance, and currently sitting on the Boards of Adnams, Jarolds and Saga as a Non-Executive Director, she talks passionately about how attending a leadership course made a huge impression on her life. Being able to make similar opportunities available to other women was just one of her inspirations behind creating the Blossom Charity and associated social enterprise Dream On.”

The Women’s Leadership Programme has already supported more than 60 aspiring female leaders in the region. It was first developed by professional recruitment specialists Pure and People & Performance Ltd in 2014. It is designed to help women strengthen their leadership skills, develop their confidence and grow their network.  

Lynn added: “It’s extremely positive to see more and more employers realising that diversity and inclusion is vital for innovation and to gaining a competitive advantage. However, there is still work to be done. A survey by Birketts and PwC revealed that one in eight employees in East Anglia felt they had experienced overt barriers to their career progression because of their gender. Our aim is to inspire organisations across the region to create inclusive work environments where any barriers to progression are removed and everyone can work in a way that makes them feel productive and engaged. Not only does this programme help women to develop their authentic leadership skills, it also equips them with the ability to work with their employers to dig out any problems, find positive solutions and to build a pipeline of more women progressing into leadership roles.”

Previous companies to have benefited from a sponsored place include the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity, Rand Europe and Fauna and Flora International. All delegates involved in the programme remain part of a strong alumni network developing across the East of England.

Lynn Morgan, Chief Executive of the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity, said: “I have been delighted with the way that the leadership programme has given my team member the time and opportunity to explore issues around leadership and personal development with other very bright young women. The facilitation on the programme has been first rate and I believe the participants have benefitted significantly by being involved.”

The Blossom Charity sponsored place is offered for the programme which starts in June. It includes four days of facilitated learning and two individual coaching sessions. The full cost of the programme is usually £2,950 but this will be reduced to £1,475 for the chosen delegate. To apply for the place, or to nominate a member of your team, email lucy.plumb@prs.uk.com with a CV and covering letter.