Click here to listen to the latest FM news on Friday 3rd February 2023
Welcome to InTheNews – covering all the FM news you may have missed over the week:
Premier Technical Services Group Limited (PTSG) is delighted to announce the acquisition of Indepth Hygiene Services Ltd (Indepth) – one of the UK’s leading specialist fire safety companies. Indepth’s core service offering includes fire damper maintenance and grease extract ductwork cleaning.
Paul Teasdale, PTSG’s Group CEO, said: “We are fully committed to the continuation of a successful strategy of achieving market leadership across the sectors in which we operate. This acquisition strengthens PTSG’s capability within our Fire Solutions division and ensures our clients will have all fire services, – electrical, mechanical, passive and/or specialist – in one place.”
Nanogreen Sustainable Cleaning has acquired domestic and commercial specialist Thomas Cleaning, in a move that will allow it to extend its operational reach and bring its social and environmental mission to new communities.
As part of the recent acquisition, Nanogreen has taken on Thomas Cleaning’s locations in Leamington Spa, Chipping Norton and Salisbury, enabling it to better serve clients across Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.
Co-owner and director Chris Horgan commented: “We are committed to having a positive environmental and social impact, and now have access to more areas in which we can make a real difference. We’re also looking forward to helping more businesses meet their own CSR goals.”
Stephen Peal announced that YorPower, PPSPower and Glenace have merged and now operate under the YorPower name.
The companies have been working together as ‘one family’ for some time, with news of the approaching merger making the headlines in the FM press. In August 2022, Stephen Peal stepped into the role of YorPower Group Managing Director (he was formerly the Managing Director for PPSPower), which was a statement of intent to operate as one ‘one family’.
From this point onwards, all companies within the group (YorPower, PPSPower and Glenace) now use the same systems, have full visibility of everyone in the different companies and know how each person goes about their job as they all work towards the same goal.
New research from City & Guilds, the skills development organisation, and workplace learning advocates The 5% Club finds that the government’s apprenticeship levy is currently not working as many employers perceive it should. It shows that levy-paying employers are using an average of 55.5% of available funds and a mere 4% have used their full levy funding in the last five years.
Despite the research finding that only 15% of businesses are always able to recruit the skilled people they need, employers are facing barriers to accessing levy funds which could help to fill skills shortages. According to City & Guilds’ research, carried out amongst 1000 HR leaders at levy-paying businesses across the UK, of those who haven’t used all of their levy funds, 94% report facing at least one barrier to accessing it.
Kirstie Donnelly, CEO of City & Guilds, said: “This research reinforces previous calls we and the wider skills sector have made for more flexibility to the current system.
As a fundamental pillar of our education and skills development system, apprenticeships must stay front of mind and employers should also have more control to respond to workforce and organisational needs if they’d prefer to spend the allocated funding – such as moving more along the supply chain or investing in broader skills development. If we are serious about levelling up – levying up is a key way towards that.”
You can find out more on news.fmbusinessdaily.com
