Aurelia Butler

The £150 council tax rebate that was part of February’s package to help with the cost of living crisis may not reach some people until September, the government has admitted, as local authorities grapple with the scheme’s logistics.The money for the payments, for which 80 per cent of British households are eligible, has been made available to councils since March 30 and was meant to reach people by the end of April. But some authorities have struggled to deliver it to households, especially to those that do not pay their council tax via direct debit.Government officials said it was not clear how many people were still awaiting the payment but stressed the money could be claimed until September to make sure that eligible households did not miss out.Last Thursday, chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a fresh package of measures to help consumers through the autumn — using other delivery methods. Neither Shaun Davies, chair of the Local Government Association’s resources board, said that delivering the payouts had been “a significant task and not without its challenges” for authorities.He said that most residents who had signed up to pay their tax via direct debit would have already received their rebate: “Councils are focusing now on contacting those eligible who do not pay their council tax by direct debit.”The LGA said that member councils had raised “considerable concerns” over the administrative burden of the scheme.Even where recipients had direct debits, sometimes councils found that the name on a bank account did not match the name of a liable party, requiring an “exception report” and manual handling.Where council tax is paid by other methods, there has had to be an application involving verification of the name and address of the applicant and a bank statement. “There are innumerate scenarios in which these names do not match,” said the LGA.Local authorities have also struggled to contact thousands of students and may not have done so by the time their summer university term ends.

Government officials acknowledged that the council tax rebate was not a perfect mechanism because the payment were granted only to people living in cheaper properties, in council tax bands A to D. That meant others who felt they deserved help but lived in homes outside those categories needed support through another discretionary fund which could be slow to reach people, the officials admitted. Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor, said the slow progress of the scheme reflected government failure. “From the outset we said support needed to be delivered quickly to those in need and warned the chancellor’s schemes would be slow and patchy,” she said. “Now we find that in a number of areas many people who didn’t pay by direct debit have not received the help they were promised . . . The delivery needs to improve because the cost of living crisis is biting hard.”But Tory MPs have claimed that Labour-run councils should carry their share of the blame for failing to get the money to people fast enough.A government spokesperson said the £150 rebate was just one part of a wider package of support for people dealing with rising living costs, which has now reached close to £40bn. “While direct debit is the quickest and easiest way to get the rebate, councils have a range of other options for people who don’t pay this way.”The government has given councils various options to pay the rebate quickly and securely, whether council tax account credits, Bacs or voucher-based transactions. It has also promised to reimburse them for any administrative costs. The levelling-up department is collecting data to monitor delivery of the rebate and will publish this in due course, according to officials. More

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – After struggling to find staff during the pandemic, businesses in Singapore have increasingly turned to deploying robots to help carry out a range of tasks, from surveying construction sites to scanning library bookshelves. The city-state relies on foreign workers, but their number fell by 235,700 between December 2019 and September 2021, according to the manpower ministry, which notes how COVID-19 curbs have sped up “the pace of technology adoption and automation” by companies.     At a Singapore construction site, a four-legged robot called “Spot”, built by U.S. company Boston Dynamics, scans sections of mud and gravel to check on work progress, with data fed back to construction company Gammon’s control room.    Gammon’s general manager, Michael O’Connell, said using Spot required only one human employee instead of the two previously needed to do the job manually. “Replacing the need for manpower on-site with autonomous solutions is gaining real traction,” said O’Connell, who believes industry labour shortages made worse by the pandemic are here to stay.    Meanwhile, Singapore’s National Library has introduced two shelf-reading robots that can scan labels on 100,000 books, or about 30 percent of its collection, per day.”Staff need not read the call numbers one by one on the shelf, and this reduces the routine and labour-intensive aspects,” said Lee Yee Fuang, assistant director at the National Library Board.    Singapore has 605 robots installed per 10,000 employees in the manufacturing industry, the second-highest number globally, after South Korea’s 932, according to a 2021 report by the International Federation of Robotics.     Robots are also being used for customer-facing tasks, with more than 30 metro stations set to have robots making coffee for commuters.    Keith Tan, chief executive of Crown Digital, which created the barista robot, said it was helping solve the “biggest pain-point” in food and beverage – finding staff – while also creating well-paid positions to help automate the sector. However, some people trying the service still yearned for human interaction.    “We always want to have some kind of human touch,” said commuter Ashish Kumar, while sipping on a robot-brewed drink. More

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders will meet on Monday to declare continued support for Ukraine to help it fend off Russia’s assault, but the talks will be overshadowed by their failure to agree on a new sanctions package against Moscow.Over two days, leaders of the 27-nation bloc are to discuss how best to aid Ukraine four months into Russia’s invasion and how to deal with the conflict’s impacts: high energy prices, an impending food shortage and the EU’s defence needs.But draft conclusions of the meeting, seen by Reuters, showed that while the EU will be generous with verbal support for the government in Kyiv, there will be little in terms of new decisions on any of the main topics.”After Russia’s attack on Ukraine, we saw what can happen when Europe stands united. With a view to the summit tomorrow, let’s hope it continues like this. But it is already starting to crumble and crumble again,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Sunday. The most tangible will be the leaders’ political backing for a 9 billion euro package of EU loans, with a small grants component to cover part of the interest, so that Ukraine can keep its government going and pay wages for around two months.But even there, the decision will be only made later, after the European Commission makes a proposal on how to raise the money.Despite efforts since the start of May, EU governments cannot agree on the sixth package of sanctions against Moscow because one of the elements – an embargo on buying Russian oil – is not acceptable to Hungary and a big problem for Slovakia and the Czech Republic.Other elements, such as disconnecting Russia’s biggest Sberbank from the SWIFT messaging system, banning Russian broadcasters from the EU and adding more people to a list whose assets are frozen and who cannot enter the EU, are all held up by the lack of agreement on the oil ban.The draft summit conclusions showed EU leaders will back the creation of an international fund to rebuild Ukraine after the war, with no details, and want to look into the possibility of confiscating frozen Russian assets for that purpose. But the careful phrasing is deliberate because the issue is legally difficult, officials said.The leaders will pledge to accelerate work to help Ukraine move its grain out of the country to global buyers via rail and truck as the Russian navy is blocking the usual sea routes and to take steps to faster become independent of Russian energy.The draft showed leaders are ready to explore ways to curb rising energy prices, including the feasibility of introducing temporary price caps, to cut red tape on rolling out renewable sources of energy and invest in connecting national energy networks across borders to better help each other. More

HONG KONG/LONDON (Reuters) -HSBC is facing queries from customers about its commitment to fight climate change after a senior banker downplayed the risks, sources told Reuters, with at least one large institutional investor reconsidering whether to employ the bank for a sustainability role, according to one of the people.The investor, which manages in excess of $100 billion, plans to seek opinions from consultants on whether HSBC Asset Management should help manage its sustainability funds in the wake of the controversial comments, said the person with direct knowledge of the matter.Staff inside the bank have also sought reassurances about its policies amid concerns about how HSBC will be perceived by clients, two other sources said.The sources declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media. A spokesperson for HSBC declined to comment. Earlier this month, Stuart Kirk, who is global head of responsible investing at HSBC Asset Management, told a conference in London that “climate change is not a financial risk we need to worry about”, comments that prompted the bank to suspend him and conduct an internal investigation.Kirk declined to comment when reached by Reuters.Kirk’s presentation was met with criticism from campaigners who have been pressuring the bank and its peers in the financial services industry to play a bigger role in the fight against climate change. It also prompted The Pensions Regulator in the U.K. to warn that any pension scheme failing to consider the impacts of climate change was “ignoring a major risk to pension savings”. HSBC is a leading provider of investment services to such schemes.HSBC Chief Executive Noel Quinn has said that Kirk’s comments were “inconsistent with HSBC’s strategy and do not reflect the views of the senior leadership”. Nicolas Moreau, who heads the asset management division, also distanced the bank from Kirk’s remarks.HSBC Asset Management has received a number of inquiries from institutional clients about Kirk’s comments, one of the sources said. Some of the institutions said they felt obligated to seek more clarity and understand HSBC’s official stance, the source added.The possibility of HSBC Asset Management, a division that oversees some $640 billion, losing business comes as the company invests in the unit as part of a broader push to grow fee income. Over the last year, HSBC has bought businesses in Singapore and India as it seeks to expand in Asia in particular.The unease has also rippled through the bank’s internal meetings. Employees feeling concerned raised questions to senior management during a recent town hall, two of the sources said. Still, several industry experts have defended Kirk, saying that he had sparked a legitimate debate and that there should be room for dissenting voices in finance. The impact of climate risk on portfolios can indeed be exaggerated as Kirk claimed, Tariq Fancy, a former head of sustainable investing at BlackRock Inc (NYSE:BLK)., told Financial News in an interview on Monday. More

This week many of us will be getting an early holiday season as a bulge in anniversaries means an uptick in public rest days across the world.If you are reading this in the US, you are already immersed in the long Memorial day weekend with tomorrow’s commemoration of those who have given their life in military service.On other years, the last Monday of May would also be a day off in the UK, linked to the Christian festival of Pentecost, or Whitsun as the Church of England calls it. But this year, the day off has been moved to Thursday and Brits have been handed an extra public holiday on Friday to commemorate Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years as British head of state — perhaps by heading to the cinema.On Thursday, Italians will commemorate the founding of their modern state with fireworks and parades on National Republic day. Then there is the Dragon Boat Festival, the traditional Chinese holiday held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar — this year that will be this Friday. However, due to the pandemic, many of the actual dragon boat races scheduled worldwide will be cancelled or held under restrictions.Whatever you feel about the point of these public holidays, they have an additional poignancy this year given the debate about working hours. The greater flexibility needed to get things done during pandemic lockdowns has led many to question the rigidity of nine-to-five working, five days a week, about whether we need to blend our home and work life better or move to a four-day week — as tech business WANdisco has already done.Economic dataIt is a fairly full week for economic data with both inflation and unemployment data for the eurozone countries, on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, plus the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book on US economic conditions on Wednesday, and US unemployment data on Friday.CompaniesSo-called dollar stores in the US have tended to trade resiliently during economic downturns and that will probably be the message from variety discounter B&M this week.Analysts expect sales and profits for the year to the end of March to be below last year’s record levels as shopping habits normalise and costs rise. But, as my colleague Jonathan Eley notes, the company’s scale and its direct-sourcing operation in Asia will help it keep prices below those of more conventional rivals as incomes come under pressure.These are likely to be the last set of full-year results for chief executive Simon Arora, who together with brother Bobby took B&M from a small chain of tatty shops in north-west England to an estate of almost 700 UK stores and a place in the FTSE 100. He surprised the market in April by announcing plans to retire.Read the full week ahead calendar here More

Germany’s centre-right opposition and ruling coalition with centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) said they reached the required two-thirds majority to exempt the defense fund from a constitutional debt brake.According to sources familiar with the matter, the negotiations were led by FDP leader Christian Lindner, SPD’s Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, Greens leader Annalena Baerbock and the opposition’s vice whip Mathias Middelberg.The money is to be used over several years to increase Germany’s regular defense budget of around 50 billion euros and enable the country to meet the NATO target of spending 2% of its economic output on defense each year.($1 = 0.9315 euros) More