The average pay rise over the three months to the end of May averaged 3%, with only 25% getting bigger rises than a year ago, according to a report from the Industrial Relations Services (IRS).
A spokesperson for the IRS said: “As we head into the quieter end of the bargaining calendar, the median […]

Prince Charles paid £3.3m in tax in 2005-06 on an income of more than £14m, a figure up 6% from last year on the strength of commercial property rent reviews and higher investment returns.
The prince’s principal private secretary Sir Michael Peat said: “In the first full year since the marriage of Charles and Camilla, […]

Mortgage lenders that charge fees up to £295 when customers pay back their loans in full are acting in a potentially ‘illegal’ manner and have been branded an absolute ‘scandal’ by industry insiders, according to the BBC’s Money Box programme.
Speaking on the programme lawyer Adam Samuel explained that if a lender increased the figure […]

Forged banknotes increased 53% in 2005 on the previous year, according to the Bank of England. The number of notes detected was 505,000.
The jump was blamed on increasingly sophisticated criminal gangs using digital technology, such as top-of-the-range scanners, to produce notes of high quality.
The Bank also discovered that three gangs were responsible for […]

The Campaign for Rural England (CPRE) has found that independent shops, employment and the countryside all flourish if plans for supermarkets are rejected.
In a report jointly produced with the Plunkett Foundation, researchers found that an area around Saxmundham in East Suffolk prospered when the council rejected planning permission for a superstore in 1997.
The area’s […]

The announcement by Scottish power that it is putting up its energy prices next month has been described as ‘a brutal assault’ on consumers from a company that has just posted a record profit.
The firm said its gas bills were to increase by an average 17%, while electricity would rise 10%. The Glasgow-based company […]

After recording a £299m deficit last year, the Bank of England (BoE) is to pay £370m into its pension fund over the next decade.
 
“The BoE has had a poor time with its pension pot in recent years,” said City analyst Colin Perry. “Poor investment returns and greatly increased longevity have been major causes of […]

UK consumers are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to their current accounts, and perhaps missing costly errors in their statements. Pauline McCallion reports
Almost 1 in 5 UK current account holders do not open, read or check their bank statements, according to new research, with only 16% keeping track of their finances […]