News | Page 48

Much disruption to staff and pupils was caused at the start of the new academic year by heavy rain after lead was stolen from the roof of a school. The theft happened at Swaythling Primary School in Hampshire.

A dispute over changes to their contracts has led members of a teaching union to strike for three days this week at a secondary school. The NASUWT teachers have walked out and their union said members had no choice but to take a stand to protect their jobs.

More bad news came for the telecommunications industry with more than 100 positions under threat at the Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) site in Swindon. NSN said about a third of its 400 research staff are in consultations over job losses.

Union leaders say they are stunned at the scale of potential cuts as a university suggests halving the number of departments from 10 to five.

Union Aslef accused management of turning down an offer to continue talks on resolving a strike hitting rail routes across the North of England.

A union is angry over the amount paid to contractors at a firm that is 83% owned by the state. Some 3,000 contractors’ names and billing rates were mistakenly attached to an email sent from Hays to 800 Royal Bank of Scotland staff. The message was supposed to remind managers to complete timesheets before the bank holiday weekend.

Companies containing workers numbering in the single figures cannot usually find the employees they want. That’s the message from a new report looking into thousands of ‘micro’ firms. Only 36% of micro firms were very or fairly confident that university leavers would have the right skills for the job.

The biggest speculative investment outside London has been hailed as a major coup in the current economic climate. A pair of UK property giants is backing a £14 million revamp of a proposed business park in South Lanarkshire near to the new M74 road.

A spokesman for the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said an improved offer by bosses for tube workers was being considered.

Manager Nigel Clough spoke about his team Derby County FC which is joining protests about saving a regional rail company.

Building work has begun on a mechanical biological treatment (MBT) facility designed to sort through waste from black bin-bags and find what can be recycled or recovered.

Administrators have sold four stores in the TJ Hughes chain to a home wares company, which has preserved nearly 500 jobs across the UK in shops from Scotland to the south coast.