North Northamptonshire Council is to submit a bid to Government to become the new national home of railways. The authority wants the area to host the headquarters of Great British Railways (GBR) – a new public body in charge of the UK’s train services. As part of the government’s commitment to level-up the UK, the new GBR HQ will be based outside of London and bring a number of high-skilled jobs to the winning location. More details of the operation will be confirmed at a later date. North Northamptonshire with its well-connected central location, railway heritage and commitment to the levelling up agenda, is thought by the council to be a strong candidate. After assessing the options, the council intends to put forward the Station Island site adjacent to Wellingborough Station on the Midland Mainline as a potential location for the HQ. Strengths of the site include its strategic scale, its availability with many services already in place and its close proximity to the new Stanton Cross development, which offers leisure and other facilities. There is also potential to reuse the former ‘Roundhouse’ engine shed which has a strong rail heritage. Discussions to put forward the bid also have the support of Stanton Cross Developments LLP which is the key landowner and principal developer of Stanton Cross. Cllr Graham Lawman, the council’s Executive member for Highways, Travel and Assets, said: “This is tremendously exciting for North Northamptonshire and I’m delighted to be supporting this bid to Government to become the HQ for Great British Railways. “We have an excellent strategic position nationally and the Wellingborough site would be the perfect fit for such an operation, having a long history as a hub and sidings for the railway in addition to the opportunities afforded by the Station Island employment site within the Stanton Cross development.” Cllr Jason Smithers, Leader of the Council, said: “Being host to the headquarters of this new organisation would be a tremendous boost to the area and I’m committed to working as hard as possible to make this a reality. Not only would North Northants benefit from such a project but equally our area has a tremendous amount to offer GBR.” Chris Tompkins, pre-construction director on behalf of Stanton Cross Developments LLP, said: “We are delighted to support North Northamptonshire Council in their expression of interest and promote the restored former railway siding as a potential home for the HQ for GBR. Located immediately adjacent to the listed Wellingborough Rail Station there is fantastic potential to build on the site’s rail heritage.” The Government recently launched the competition to find a location based outside of London for GBR. The organisation will manage the country’s rail infrastructure and set timetables and ticket prices. The council will submit an expression of interest to Government by 16 March as a first step in the selection process.

Whether you lead a small team or an entire department, performance reviews are a must for any manager. It is one of the best formats for feedback to be provided on both sides, and it allows you to set expectations for the following year too. Knowing how to conduct a performance review is an integral part of management which is why we have put together the following guide, so let’s get into it. Goals & Objectives Before you can begin conducting your performance reviews, you should think about what you want to achieve from them. A performance review serves many purposes. You need to tailor these purposes to your own end by having an idea of your goals for the reviews. Your goals might be geared more towards communicating your expectations and motivating the team. You might decide instead to focus on creating plans to help your employees with their career progression. Or finally, you might decide to use their performance reviews to come up with goals that they need to achieve before their next review. After you have decided on your objectives, you can begin to tailor your performance reviews and think about the things that you want to discuss. Topics to Discuss Performance reviews don’t necessarily have to be rigidly planned; it is necessary to be a little flexible and allow the conversation to flow. That being said, you should compile a list of talking points to ensure that you are covering all of the important topics. The best way to keep a conversation flowing organically is by asking open-ended questions that elicit more than a simple yes or no answer. Of course, the questions that you ask will depend on your goals for the review and the business’s goals as a whole, but they might include things like:

• How do you feel you have performed in your role this year?
• Do you have any goals for your professional development?
• What can we, as a business, do to support you?
• Is there any feedback that you would like to offer to me as a manager?
• Have you achieved the goals set for you at your last performance review?

It is all about encouraging an open and honest conversation and building a relationship with the staff. The Process The process often follows a loose structure. First, you communicate with your team that the performance reviews are coming up. You then need to compile a few resources, including the job descriptions of the employees that you are reviewing and any existing records regarding their performance. This can be difficult if you don’t have the proper records, which is where something like Factorials HR’s performance management system comes in. It provides you with easy and clear data that you can refer back to. It saves you time by allowing you to set performance review cycles and will automatically send out performance reviews at set times to staff. It also allows for completely anonymous reviews if required so that your staff can feel safe to put down their true feelings. After you have prepared yourself and your employees, you need to schedule their reviews. When they turn up for their review, you need to ensure that it is a conversation. It cannot be a one-sided endeavour; otherwise, neither party is going to get enough out of it. You should also offer each employee the chance to assess their own performance. This offers you a new perspective on their performance. When it comes to providing feedback, whether negative or positive, you need to ensure that it is constructive. Constructive criticism is designed to help your employees identify areas of improvement and growth. Positive feedback, on the other hand, is used to motivate the staff by praising the things that they have done well, encouraging them to continue with those behaviours. After the feedback, it is time to think about setting the employee a new set of goals for the year ahead. Setting goals can be a collaborative effort; decide on them together. Remember to take into account career progression and make sure that they are easily measurable. Towards the end of the review, it comes time to ask for some feedback of your own. Ask your employee whether they have any feedback to deliver to the management team. Finally, you should deliver a summary of the key takeaways. This can be a verbal summary, or you might want to use a performance review form; you can create a copy for the employee and for your records, too. This also ensures that you have a record to refer back to when it comes to the next performance review. The Bottom Line A performance review can be an incredible management tool when used properly. The above process is more geared towards a formal review, but it can be customized to suit the needs of your business and management style. In addition to delivering your feedback and expectations to the staff, you are affording them the opportunity to do the same for you. You can learn a lot about your management style and your approach to business. By conducting performance reviews well, you can dramatically improve the productivity and efficiency of your workforce.

The conflict in the Ukraine conflict shows quite clearly that the UK must start bolstering its future economic resilience, from our supply chains and energy sources to our cyber security, according to CBI Director-General Tony Danker. He said: “To do that, the Government will need to fast-track progress on some of the big policy issues and help firms invest. Business stands ready to support them in that endeavour. “Since the start of this crisis, the CBI has been guiding thousands of firms across the country to support economic sanctions on Russia and to get behind humanitarian efforts for people in Ukraine and for refugees. Convening its councils and roundtables across the UK, CBI members are supportive of sanctions, despite the real costs involved in doing so. “The next phase must be finding our economic resilience, better ensuring our fate remains in our hands on this conflict and for the future.” “Sanctions have been a successful start to global efforts to isolate the Putin regime. But the next phase will require global economies, including Britain, to be economically resilient to further threats.” He said the crisis showed the UK had to move far faster towards clean energy solutions. “We need to double down on successful strategies for wind power and nuclear. And we must go further and faster to deliver investible business models for carbon capture and hydrogen. Government is moving too slowly on these solutions. “We need to stand behind domestic oil and gas in our energy transition. That’s why the government is right to take forward the aims of its North Sea Transition Deal with industry, and we need to recognise immediately the looming crisis in domestic and business energy bills. We need to move immediately towards energy efficiency in homes to dampen down demand. And government will need to think urgently about consumers’  as bills go higher still later in the year.” His calls came amongst a package of pleas covering minerals, commodities, cyber security and business investment, adding: “Firms fully support sanctions despite their cost. Meanwhile the CBI will continue to advise companies on what’s required and ensure the government understands the implications of its decisions for UK firms domestically and overseas.”  

The FSB is urging the Chancellor to make next week’s Spring Statement “a rallying point” for businesses as surging operating costs, supply chain disruption and labour shortages make it increasingly difficult for firms to invest and expand. In a letter to Rishi Sunak, the FSB recommends interventions aimed at addressing “foundational issues” in the UK economy against a backdrop of declining business confidence. The move follows a pledge from the Chancellor last month to create “a new culture of enterprise”. In his Mais lecture, Sunak stated that he “firmly believe[s] in lower taxes”, adding that “the marginal pound our country produces is far better spent by individuals and businesses than government.” He is set to confirm an £18bn collective annual increase in national insurance contributions (NICs) and dividend taxation at his Spring Statement next week. There is also speculation that the Treasury may scrap the R&D tax credit incentive for small research-intensive businesses in favour of supporting larger companies. In his correspondence with the Chancellor, the new FSB Chair, Martin McTague flags that, with the public finances tight, the Treasury should move away from an “eye-wateringly expensive” super deduction tax break which “will primarily be used by corporations and multinationals, not small businesses operating in all our communities,” and instead prioritise reduction of Government-imposed overheads to free up funds for investment at the local level. FSB research shows that just 4% of the small businesses that make up 99% of the private sector see the super deduction as one of the top three incentives to invest. In its costed Spring Statement submission, FSB recommends:

• Increasing the Employment Allowance to £5,000.
• Taking an additional 200,000 community small businesses in levelling up target areas out of the business rates system by increasing the rateable value ceiling for small business rates relief to £25,000, and extending a one-year relief on business rates increases linked to property investments in plant and machinery.
• Extending support with energy costs being allocated via the council tax system to micro businesses via the business rates system, and launching a Help To Green initiative to spur on-site renewable generation.
• Delivering on pledges to end the UK’s poor payment culture by making Audit Committees directly responsible for ensuring best practice within supply chains.
• Expanding and making permanent a statutory sick pay rebate for small firms whilst continuing with incentives in England to take on apprentices and T Level placements.
• Widening eligibility for the Help To Grow Digital and Management initiatives to the 750,000 small firms currently excluded from them.
• Simplifying the R&D tax credit system to make it more accessible for small businesses without having to use paid intermediaries.

FSB is also encouraging the Government to build on the success of the Refugee Entrepreneurship Pilot Programme. Existing research shows that migrants seeking asylum are considerably more likely to start an enterprise than other groups. Elsewhere in its letter to the Chancellor, FSB advocates reform of Universal Credit to make it more supportive of entrepreneurs without start-up capital, not least in regards to the minimum income floor. The New Enterprise Allowance, which has helped to create more than 100,000 businesses, was withdrawn at the start of the year. The group’s letter follows publication of the ONS’s latest Business Insights study, which finds that 5% of business owners “have low or no confidence of surviving the next three months”. The latest BEIS statistics show that there are 5.6 million firms across the UK, indicating 280,000 are at imminent risk of collapse. A quarter (25%) of enterprises in the hard-hit accommodation & food services sector are still not fully trading, according to the ONS, and the majority of firms are concerned about performance over the coming month: “the top two concerns were inflation of goods and services prices (21%) and energy prices (15%).” FSB National Chair Martin McTague said: “When we look back at this tumultuous period, next week’s Spring Statement will, for better or worse, be seen as a turning point. “The Chancellor has a choice: plough on with damaging tax hikes, or take steps to protect the most fragile and empower small firms to deliver his ‘culture of enterprise’ vision. “He rightly talks about the need to invest in capital, people and ideas. However, that investment cannot happen so long as surging operating costs are depleting cash reserves and disposable incomes. Pulling the rug from under small research-intensive firms with the removal of incentives would make a bad situation worse. “The time to deliver a low tax, high investment, dynamic economy is now, not later in the political cycle. The Chancellor cannot control the wholesale price of gas and oil, but he can control tax policy.”