Today we feature a blog post by Kenneth Tombs. Ken has over 35 years industry and business experience. His research work at the Commercial Law Unit of Queen Mary University in London, set the scene for the development of international best practices and guidance on legally admissible electronic documents. Sector experience includes  central and local government, finance and banking, pension and insurance, industrial and utilities.

For many years Ken was a Law Society recognised expert witness, taking part in a number of major fraud and criminal cases. He has lectured at various conferences on information control and governance, in Europe and America, including the Information Systems Audit and Control conferences. Between 1989 and 2007 he was an external advisor to the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) in the Treasury, undertaking the independent review of the Government’s OGCGateway™ peer review programme.

Along with other projects Ken is now the Course Director for Signal’s Counter Fraud course.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, has today delivered the second budget of the Coalition Government.

Read the published budget document in detail here: (Click Link)

Signal were recently privileged to deliver a couple of one day seminars to the students of the new National Enterprise Academy.

The National Enterprise Academy (NEA) was founded by Peter Jones, CBE. It offers the first full time qualification in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at both levels 2 and 3, for young people aged 16-19. Peter’s vision was to bring the boardroom to the classroom, which has been achieved across the NEA campuses. The young people benefit from inspiring lessons from entrepreneurial tutors, as well as regular input from businesses and entrepreneurs from around the country, which accounts for over 50% of the course delivery.

I am prompted to write today after reflecting on a headline news item that the Home Secretary has announced significant reform to Police reward structures. The pay bill currently costs more than three quarters of the overall £11bn budget, like all organisations with sound governance in place, the Police Service needs to keep a weather eye on its costs, specifically its paybill costs.

(Clink link)

Before I continue I want to say this, that no one is saying that the Police don’t do an important job, but they are a service in an environment of limited resources the same as all other critical services e.g. Health going through its own kind of pain right now, and the Government like any other organisation must cut its cloth accordingly.

We’re delighted to welcome our second guest blogger to the pages of Signal Business Consulting, to talk about Veterans who find themselves on the wrong side of the law.

Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Philpott OBE RM (Retired)

I joined the Royal Marines in November 1963 as a Junior Marine and was subsequently awarded a General List Commission in September 1965. I served in numerous operational, training and staff appointments in the UK, mainland Europe, at sea and the Far East.