The British Professions Today

May 20, 2009

london-sunset.jpg

Today sees the launch of Spada’s new White Paper, British Professions Today: The State of the Sector. It’s a timely one, too, not only because the British Parliament – an institution comprised entirely of professionals, of one kind or another – is presently undergoing an unprecedented bout of self-scrutiny, but also because, on a wider, societal level, there is no one single document bringing together a summary of the British professions’ history and structures, their various roles and contributions to society, and a vision for the future.

Quite why so little research into the professions, as a whole, has been done is all the more extraordinary given the following statistics:

  • Professional services account for the largest single share of UK output (in UK real GDP), contributing 8% of the total.
  • Despite the global financial downturn, professional services continue to expand. Growth of 3.4% from 2004 to 2014 is forecast, in contrast to 2.4% average annual growth forecast for the whole economy in the same period.
  • Professional services represent £15,849m of British trade in services – over half the total of £29,194m
  • The professions represent the largest single category of employment in the UK, with 11.5% of total UK employment.

Spada’s White Paper has been compiled in collaboration with an informal working group of professional membership bodies including the Law Society, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), the Bar Council and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. There’ll be more on this in the coming days, but for now, click here to find out about the British Professions Today.

Image courtesy of Philipp Klinger on Flickr.

 

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From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.