July 25, 2018
RICS and IFMA launch Procurement of Facilities Management statement to address “race to the bottom”
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has today launched its first professional statement to ‘reduce risk, increase transparency and further trust’ in procurement in facilities management. The RICS Procurement of facility management, RICS professional statement, UK 1st edition, was worked on in collaboration with IMFA, and also the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS). RICS says it will be looking to make this a global professional statement in due course. All RICS regulated professionals (mandatory from the 1 October 2018) will be expected to follow this guidance, but according to RICS, adoption of the framework would be competitively beneficial for all property professionals involved in the procurement of FM services, including those acting for landlords and occupiers, FM suppliers procuring services from sub-contractors and investors and public and private occupier organisations.
August 9, 2018
Is driver behind the widening parental leave gap a lack of rights in the gig economy?
by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace
The already low number of fathers claiming paternity leave has fallen for the first time in five years, to 213,500, down 3 percent from 221,000 last year an analysis by law firm EMW has revealed. To help encourage more men to take paternity leave, the Government launched the shared parental leave scheme in 2015. However, take up of the scheme has also been slow, with less than 2 percent of all UK fathers participating. These latest figures suggest that hundreds of thousands of men are not taking up their entitlement to paternity leave. In comparison with low rates of paternity leave, nearly treble the number of mothers (662,700) took maternity leave in 2017-2018, up from 661,000 in 2016/17. More →