Onwards and Upwards for Innovation and Growth

HMRC has just released its latest annual Research and Development Tax Credits Statistics and they make encouraging reading, not just for the companies that have benefited directly, but for UK PLC as a whole.

 

By the end of 2012‐13, more than 28,500 companies had made claims under the SME scheme since its introduction in 2000, and over 7,000 under the Large Company scheme, which launched in 2002, making a grand total of more than £9.5bn in tax relief claimed to date.

What’s even better news is that uptake is on the increase, with 26% more R&D tax relief claims in 2012-13 compared to 2011-12 and a 30% hike in SME claims on the previous year.

R&D and innovation are both key enablers of economic growth, so it’s great to see businesses making the most of the programmes available to support their research and development, as Felicity Burch, Senior Economist at EEF, the manufacturers' organisation, explains: "The continued strong uptake of the R&D tax credit is good news, as it supports companies seeking to bring new products and services to market. The credit is a strong feature of the UK innovation system and its position within the innovation landscape must be maintained."

At Jumpstart, we work tirelessly to promote awareness of the benefits of the UK R&D tax relief scheme. Why? Because they can make a real difference to the finances of dynamic and expanding companies. "Those companies who reap the benefits of successful R&D claims tend to go on to spend more on R&D, thus creating a virtuous circle and bringing substantial benefits to the wider UK economy," says Brian Williamson, MD at Jumpstart.

Of those companies capitalising on the scheme, those in the ‘Manufacturing’, ‘Professional, Scientific and Technical’, and ‘Information and Communication’ sectors accounted for the greatest volume of claims for 2012‐13, according to HMRC’s latest stats. We have to remember though, that R&D tax relief isn’t just confined to technology and manufacturing companies. Far from it! Lots of companies – in a variety of different sectors – are constantly striving to take their products and production methods above and beyond existing technology. This means that they’re doing R&D – sometimes without even realising it – and could be eligible for R&D tax relief, providing the funding for continuing advances.

Take a business like ACS Clothing for instance: “When Jumpstart advised us that even the processes used by bakeries had been eligible for R&D, then we thought about all the process projects we have in ACS. We realised then that R&D is not the preserve of high-end, high-tech, pharmaceutical businesses!” says Andrew Rough, Finance Director, ACS Clothing Ltd.

So why are so many more businesses now claiming R&D tax relief? The Government’s additional incentives to make the scheme even more attractive, especially for SMEs, are clearly paying off, according to Jumpstart’s Brian Williamson: "The number of new clients we are attracting every day would suggest that UK SMEs are becoming much more aware of the game-changing advantages which can be reaped from government schemes.”

But there’s still a long way to go... Of the 4.9 million SMEs in the UK, still only 0.3% have made a claim. The rewards for innovation and efficiency are there for all to see.

“My company has benefited enormously. Whether you’re £1.4m or £1.4bn, the principle is the same. If everyone made use of the services of Jumpstart, then the UK economy... would be so much healthier. I urge all to follow us, and get what is, after all, rightfully theirs.”

Jim McColl OBE, Chief Executive and Chairman, Clyde Blowers Capital

 

Author - Laeticia Guichard

Bacon and Egg Flavoured Ice-Cream. Sound Cool?

 

Well this is just one of the dishes created through the combination of science and cooking, or molecular gastronomy, which seeks to explore culinary possibilities and challenge the sensory properties of food, such as flavour, aroma and texture, through the investigation of physical and chemical processes that occur while cooking. This style of cuisine frequently involves liquid nitrogen, water baths and rotary evaporators, more commonly found in a science laboratory rather than a kitchen, to create unusual recipes like the aforementioned breakfast flavoured dessert or snail porridge.

Note-by-note cooking takes this approach to the next level.

Whereas molecular gastronomy uses scientific techniques to induce weird and wonderful chemical and physical transformations in traditional ingredients, note by note cuisine involves preparing food directly from the basic constituent chemicals themselves i.e. the individual flavour notes that comprise the dishes. The first ever note-by-note dish featured jelly pearls that tasted like apple, lemon sorbet and a wafer-thin caramel strip. However, no apple, lemon or caramel was used to flavour the dish.

To create such a dish, you first have to understand the chemicals that give foods their taste, structure and aroma, using laboratory techniques such as mass spectrometry to identify the constituent parts. For example, methional, a flavour compound that tastes like potato, and 2-methyl-3-furanthiol, which gives the taste of chicken, can be synthesised in the laboratory and then combined, along with any desired nutrients, and cooked to make an edible Sunday roast.

The concept goes beyond simply trying to create interesting flavoured and textured foods. With a rising global population and a food chain burdened by ethical, environmental and economic concerns, attempts to engineer alternative, sustainable foods that overcome the issue are currently being investigated, such as artificial eggs made from plant proteins to replicate the taste of real eggs, without a chicken ever coming close to the production process. Of course, this brings a new angle to the age-old question: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Author - Paul Clingan

Photo credits: Dom Davies

Hulton Associates partners with Lindenhouse Software for Virtual Cabinet

Hulton Associates is proud to announce a brand new partnership with Lindenhouse Software for the provision of its flagship document, image and content management solution Virtual Cabinet.

 

Virtual Cabinet is a fully integrated document management system with full version control and audit trail to provide peace of mind for those wishing to destroy their paperwork and create a paperless office while adhering to standards for legal admissibility.

Virtual Cabinet provides a secure document store with many additional search facilities enabling your document to be found more easily. It integrates fully with back office systems and has the ability to simply link all forms of electronic files back to the client record.

It provides routing facilities for scanned documents through user in trays, enabling distribution of scanned data around your organisation and has exclusive remote scanning facilities for those wishing to scan whilst using hosted or thin client solutions.

Virtual Cabinet enables your company to control all documents, share information, increase productivity and archive securely with an instant return on investment.

Author - Mark Lear

2020 16th Annual Conference - Turning Dreams into Reality

Hulton Associates will be assisting our R&D Tax Credit partners, Jumpstart at the 16th Annual 2020 Conference in October.

As a partner and sponsor of the 2020 Group, Jumpstart has been invited to take part to demonstrate how companies not usually associated with research and development, can benefit from the Government's R&D tax relief scheme. 

It is hoped that this expert knowledge share will encourage accountancy firms to look closely at their own client base and investigate further where opportunities may lie within the scheme as a secure way of funding for companies in their portfolio.

The Conference takes place at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel on Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th October 2014 and has guest speakers on each of the days.

Keynote Speaker - Paul Dunn (Wednesday)

Paul Dunn is a Senior Fellow in one of the world’s leading think tanks and holds a lifetime service award to the accounting profession in the UK. Paul continues to push the boundaries and will show you the real key in Turning Dreams into Reality!

Guest Speaker - Martin Bissett (Thursday)

Martin has worked with several hundred accounting firms internationally to grow their gross recurring fee bases. He will outline how practices can develop a pipeline of qualified prospects and turn them into clients. Martin will also show you how to instigate strong cross-selling and referral systems in your firm.

After Dinner Speaker - Jimmy Greaves

Jimmy Greaves will be entertaining us with stories of an iconic career that spanned three glorious decades in which he scored goals with an unerring regularity for club and country. One of the most naturally gifted and prolific footballers of any era, Jimmy will forever be remembered as one of England’s greatest ever strikers.

Author - Mark Lear

Security Flaws in USB Devices

 

Security researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell called into question the safety and security of using USB to connect devices to computers during a session at Blackhat. They demonstrated how any USB device could be used to infect a computer without the user’s knowledge, something they there is no practical way to defend against.

Indeed, USB devices have been used for this purpose for many years now.  Some of the earliest examples included the infamous iPod Slurpie, which when plugged in to charge would index the host machine and any network shares it was connected to and copy all .doc and .xls files. Then there was the solid state drive in a USB mouse. Connecting the mouse performed the same as the Slurpie.

 

These devices were and still are used to evade good endpoint control technologies which only allowed white-listed devices to connect through the USB port. With a small development board, 20 minutes of reading docs and some simple code you can make your USB device look like anything and have it perform any task once connected.

 

So, are USB devices “critically flawed” ?

 

Well, not really. The issue lays within the way they are consumerised. Presently not many people actually want secure USB devices and as such the manufacturers of devices are not bothering with security. To highlight the point, a 16gb USB key from a supermarket is less than £10. A secure 16gb USB key from a firm like IronKey starts at £80. That is a massive difference in cost.

Author - Peter Bassill

Information Commissioner ‘sounds the alarm’ on data breaches within the legal profession

 

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published a warning today to barristers and solicitors to keep personal information secure, especially their paper files. This follows on from a number of data breaches reported to the ICO involving the legal profession.

 

During the previous three months there have been 15 incidents reported to the ICO involving law firms. This is rather disturbing as information handled by barristers and solicitors is often very sensitive and can contain significant quantities of personal or trade secret information. This means that the damage caused by the loss/breach could meet the statutory threshold for issuing a financial penalty.

 

Legal professionals will also often carry around folders/files when taking them to or from court, occasionally keeping them at home. This can increase the risk of a data breach, as has been seen in the US. A number of “hacking” collectives have been known to target legal professionals when they act on behalf of their adversary, seeing them as a soft target in order gain access to information.

 

Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, said:

“The number of breaches reported by barristers and solicitors may not seem that high, but given the sensitive information they handle, and the fact that it is often held in paper files rather than secured by any sort of encryption, that number is troubling. It is important that we sound the alarm at an early stage to make sure this problem is addressed before a barrister or solicitor is left counting the financial and reputational damage of a serious data breach.

 

“We have published some top tips to help barristers and solicitors look after the personal information they handle. These measures will set them on the road to compliance and help them get the basics right.”

 

The ICO has published the following top tips to help barristers and solicitors keep the personal information they handle secure: -

• Keep paper records secure. Do not leave files in your car overnight and do lock information away when it is not in use.        
• Consider data minimisation techniques in order to ensure that you are only carrying information that is essential to the task in hand.      
• Where possible, store personal information on an encrypted memory stick or portable device. If the information is properly encrypted it will be virtually impossible to access it, even if the device is lost or stolen.
• When sending personal information by email consider whether the information needs to be encrypted or password protected. Avoid the pitfalls of auto-complete by double checking to make sure the email address you are sending the information to is correct.
• Only keep information for as long as is necessary. You must delete or dispose of information securely if you no longer need it.
• If you are disposing of an old computer, or other device, make sure all of the information held on the device is permanently deleted before disposal.

The ICO is currently working with The Bar Council to update the Information Security Guidance provided to Barristers in England and Wales.

 

The ICO website includes further guidance on the security measures that should be in place when handling personal information. The ICO has also published a blog explaining the importance of encryption and the options available to barristers and solicitors who need to encrypt their data.

 

The ICO can serve a monetary penalty of up to £500,000 for a serious breach of the Data Protection Act provided the incident had the potential to cause substantial damage or substantial distress to affected individuals. In most cases these penalties are issued to companies or public authorities, but barristers and solicitors are generally classed as data controllers in their own right and are therefore legally responsible for the personal information they process.

Author - Peter Bassill