By Mark Jones, director of Carmarthen-based Clay Shaw Butler chartered accountants and business consultants.

Turn on the TV, listen to the radio, or open your tablet computer or newspaper and you’ll find pensions are always in the news.

Pensions are an important consideration for all – and they become much more important the older you get.

But what are the rules?

Employers can help promote retirement benefits for their employees in a number of ways, including occupational schemes.

Occupational pension schemes require the establishment of a trust in order to gain the tax advantages and to ensure that the assets of the pension scheme are kept separate from those of the employer.

The team at Clay Shaw Butler produce regularly-updated factsheets on the main responsibilities of occupational pension scheme trustees.

If your business is in West Wales, we can advise you on the accounting and audit requirements of your scheme.

Many employers offer their staff an opportunity to save for their retirement through an occupational (or company) pension scheme.

Those employees who join the scheme need to have confidence that the scheme is being well run.

The role of pension scheme trustees is very important in ensuring that the scheme is run honestly and efficiently and in the best interests of the members.

The Pensions Act 1995 (the Act) brought about a number of major changes to the way occupational pension schemes are run. The 2004 Pensions Act brought about further change and introduced, in April 2005, The Pensions Regulator (TPR) as the UK regulator of work-based pension schemes.

TPR has an important role in the pension sector.

Its objectives, as set out in legislation, are to:

• protect the benefits of members of work-based pension schemes
• protect the benefits of members of personal pension schemes (where there is a direct payment arrangement)
• promote, and to improve understanding of the good administration of work-based pension schemes
• reduce the risk of situations arising which may lead to claims for compensation being payable from the Pension Protection Fund
• maximise employer compliance with employer duties and the employment safeguards introduced by the Pensions Act 2008
• minimise any adverse impact on the sustainable growth of an employer (in relation to the exercise of the regulator’s functions under Part 3 of the Pension Act 2014).

TPR has three core powers that underpin its regulatory approach:

• investigating schemes by gathering information that helps them identify and monitor risks
• putting things right where problems have been identified
• acting against avoidance to ensure that employers do not sidestep their pension obligations.

In fulfilling its role, TPR produces important guidance for those involved with pension schemes including trustees as well as auditors and actuaries. This guidance is available from TPR’s website.

The Pensions Act 2008 introduced a requirement on UK employers to automatically enrol all employees in a ‘qualifying auto-enrolment pension scheme’ and to make contributions to that scheme on their behalf. Enrolment may be either into an occupational pension scheme or a contract based scheme.

Many contract based schemes are group personal pensions where an employer appoints a pension provider, often an insurance company, to run the scheme. The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) is a government backed pension scheme that employers can use for auto enrolling employees.

Compliance with the regulations started from 2012 for the largest employers.

You can find out more about money matters on the Clay Shaw Butler website (under our news for business section) –

http://www.clayshawbutler.com/news/latest-news-for-business

We have a strong and experienced team with great local knowledge all geared-up to helping you get the very best from your finances – whether that is as an individual or as a business.

We stay ahead of the game by putting great store by continual professional development for our staff.

With Investors In People status at Clay Shaw Butler, we care passionately about making sure our staff have all the tools they need to serve you, our customers.

Weblink – http://www.clayshawbutler.com

The team at Clay Shaw Butler can be contacted on 01267 228500.

The team at Clay Shaw Butler are on Twitter. Look for @clayshawbutler.

Construction work on the £40.5m Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise Campus is set to start on 2 July 2018 at Aberystwyth University’s Gogerddan campus near Penrhyncoch.

The Innovation Campus will foster collaboration between business and academia, providing world-leading facilities and expertise for the food and drink, bio-processing and biotechnology sectors.

The construction contract for the ambitious development has been awarded to Willmott Dixon Construction Limited and is expected to take two years to complete.

Professor Elizabeth Treasure, Vice-Chancellor of Aberystwyth University said: “Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise Campus is an exceptional development that will bring new industry partnerships and jobs to the region. It is an example of the University working collaboratively to ensure that the excellent research carried out here – particularly within our Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) – acts as a catalyst for innovative practice which has an impact on the wider economy.

“We are grateful to the Welsh Government for their support through the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) and to BBSRC, part of UK Research and Innovation, for their support, as well as to Ceredigion County Council who have worked with us on infrastructure improvements for the benefit of the area.”

The University and Ceredigion County Council have worked together to deliver highway improvements to widen the road leading to the Campus from the main A4159 crossroads and these works were successfully completed by the County Council in May 2018.

The County Council’s Cabinet member responsible for Economy and Regeneration, Councillor Rhodri Evans said: “Innovation and enterprise are key factors in supporting Ceredigion’s economy to flourish. The Council has worked closely with Aberystwyth University to enable the development to progress and I am delighted to see work beginning. I hope to see many benefits for the whole county after the Campus is established.”

Funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government (£20m), BBSRC – part of UK Research and Innovation (£12m) and Aberystwyth University (£8.5m), the Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise Campus will offer a range of high quality facilities to support innovation, enabling commercial enterprises to grow, prosper and drive economic growth in the food and drink, bio-processing and biotechnology sectors throughout Wales and beyond.

Rhian Hayward MBE, Chief Executive Officer for Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise Campus said: “As we move into this construction phase we have already received considerable interest from companies in using the facilities in collaboration with Aberystwyth University experts. The Campus development is already showing early promise of its potential to support economic growth amongst entrepreneurs, start-up companies and large industry partners.”

Ian Jones, Director for Willmott Dixon Wales and West added: “We understand the significance of this project to the region and we are proud to be able to help bring the vision of the Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise Campus to life. The size and scale of the project is impressive, and highlights the University’s commitment to delivering world class research and innovation facilities.”

Photo: Left to Right:Ian Jones, Director for Wilmott Dixon Wales and West; Professor Elizabeth Treasure, Vice-Chancellor of Aberystwyth University; Professor Chris Thomas, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Aberystwyth University; Dr Rhian Hayward, Chief Executive Officer at Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise Campus; and Jeff Monks, Head of Estate Operations at BBSRC.

Links:
Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise Campus
www.aberinnovation.co.uk

Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences
www.aber.ac.uk/en/ibers

BBSRC
https://bbsrc.ukri.org

Wales European Funding Office – WEFO
wefo.gov.wales

More than 160 former students and staff will gather in Aberystwyth 29 June – 1 July 2018 to celebrate the centenary of the University’s Department of Geography and Earth Sciences.

From keynote speakers to field trips and old films, a special weekend of events and activities has been organised to mark the department’s 100^thbirthday.

The event will be an opportunity to look back on the Department’s achievements as well as its plans for the future.

Some alumni are travelling from as far away as New Zealand and British Columbia in Canada to attend the celebrations.

It was in the summer of 1918, as the First World War was drawing to a close, that the first students arrived in Aberystwyth to study Geography.

The Old College on the seafront was the original teaching location, with the Department moving to its current home in the Llandinam building on Penglais campus in 1965.

In 1988, Geography merged with the University’s equally distinguished Department of Geology (established in 1910), and introduced new degrees in Environmental Science and Environmental Earth Science.

To date, more than 8,000 students have gained a degree from the Department, with today’s graduates working as lecturers and professors in universities from California to China, and New South Wales to South Africa.

Notable staff through the decades include the first Head of Department Professor Fleure, acknowledged as one of the giants of early twentieth century Geography, and Professor E G Bowen who travelled around Wales in his distinctive yellow Mini giving public lectures on the cultural and historical geography of Wales.

The Department has won many accolades along the way and is ranked among the top 150 Geography Departments in the world (QS World Rankings 2017).

Staff in the Department’s internationally recognised Centre for Glaciology have been awarded the prestigious Polar Medal three times.

Emeritus Professor Michael Hambrey has won the Polar Medal twice, and was also the recipient of the 2018 Medal for Excellence in Antarctic Research by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). In 2017, Professor Bryn Hubbard received the Polar Medal and in 2016, Professor Neil Glasser had a glacier named after him.

Professor Elizabeth Treasure, Vice-Chancellor at Aberystwyth University, said: “I would like to congratulate the department – its staff, students and supporters, both past and present – on reaching this landmark birthday. Over the last century, this Department has made an immense contribution to the global understanding of both physical and human geography. Its researchers and graduates will continue to make an impact through its teaching and research, and further build our understanding of climate change and other major issues facing our planet.”

The centenary celebrations are being organised by Professor Michael Woods, who said: “With the QS University Rankings placing Aberystwyth in the Top 150 geography departments in the world, we have plenty to celebrate in 2018. As a Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, we continue to balance arts and science, as well as the local and global, and we remain committed to integrating research and teaching.

“Nowhere is this more evident than on our famous fieldtrips. Generations of graduates from the 1970s and 1980s will still reflect nostalgically on the first year fieldtrip to Tenby, or overseas trips to Paris or Spain. Later, Aberystwyth was one of the first British geography departments to run a fieldtrip to New York, and our New Zealand fieldtrips are still as popular as ever and the envy of students and staff elsewhere.”

Professor Paul Brewer, Head of the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, said: “We look forward to welcoming back former students and staff as we reflect on a hundred years of geography at Aberystwyth. When we started teaching the subject back in 1918, we were the first department of its kind in Wales and one of only three in the UK offering a degree in Geography. Our reputation stems from the breadth of our international research and the quality of our teaching that blends the best traditions with the latest innovations. Our recently refurbished lecture theatres are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, and we look forward now to taking the teaching of Geography in the 21^stcentury to the next level.”

The current President of the Old Students’’ Association, John Frampton, came to study Geology at Aberystwyth in 1958 and will be at the centenary celebrations: “I congratulate the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences on reaching its centenary and wish it well as it moves into the next 100 years. For all who will be returning for the weekend’s celebrations may the weather be fine, the camaraderie enjoyable and may you enjoy Aber and all that it means, and has meant to you, in its wonderful unique way.”

The programme for the Centenary Weekend 29 June – 1 July includes:

Friday 29 June 2018

A reception hosted by Vice-Chancellor Professor Elizabeth Treasure for the Department’s alumni and members of the Old Students’ Association in the University’s newly-refurbished Hugh Owen Library followed by a GeoSoc quiz in the Arts Centre.

Saturday 30 June 2018

A series of talks, displays, demonstrations and activities in the Llandinam building, with tours of the department’s facilities including the new Centenary Laboratory and the cutting-edge technology used in Earth Observation and GIS teaching and research. The Centenary Lecture will be given by Professor John Lewin, Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography and former Pro Vice-Chancellor – ‘Geography and Earth Sciences: Past, Present and Future’. A Centenary Dinner will be held in the evening.

Sunday 1 July 2018

A chance to revisit fieldwork sites and find out how the department’s research is helping us to understand the environment and society in Wales, with trips to the Rheidol Valley, Cors Fochno and Ynyslas as well as a walking tour of the town.

Photo: The iconic Llandinam tower, home to Geography since the 1960s.

Links:
Department of Geography and Earth Sciences
www.aber.ac.uk/en/dges

Centenary Celebrations
https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/dges/about/centenary

Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. Website – www.philevans.co.uk

………………………….

As I’ve pointed out many times (and you didn’t take a blind bit of notice!), the world is getting crazier every day.

Long-held attitudes, thoughts and opinions that shaped who we are and kept our lives in some semblance of common sense order for decades are now regularly questioned by individuals we’ve never heard of before.

Having scoured their back gardens looking for bees, they stick one in their bonnets and can’t wait to complain about it.

At the same time, they tell the rest of us we’re all wrong for being out of step with their opinions.

Somehow, they’re allowed a spot on the TV news or current affairs programme to announce that they’re ‘offended’ by something that no-one has ever been offended by before in the history of the worldand demand that “Something must be done about it!”

Of course, the rest of us aren’t allowed to demand ‘Something must be done about them’, like, they shouldn’t be allowed within two miles of a TV or radio studio or a newspaper reporter who’s looking for a ‘controversial’ opinion piece, eagerly licking his pencil ready to jot down their idiotic ideas in his beer-stained notebook.

Just the other day, an extremely articulate woman was given 10 minutes of TV airtime to complain that MEN AT WORK road signs are sexistand out of place in a modern society where men and women should be accepted as equals.

I’ve always accepted that women are equal to men.

Indeed. in many aspects they’re superior.

But, on the rare occasion I’ve seen evidence of men actually at workon the motorway behind MEN AT WORK signs, there was even less evidence that women were digging up the tarmac alongside them.

I’m hoping to be on the telly soon . . .

If I can find something that offends me by then . . .

——————

Up, up and away:

I’m writing this week’s column at 38000 feet, travelling at 550 miles per hour, heading to Los Angeles in California, America’s second biggest city.

We even have an internet connection on board.

How times have changed.

Sitting besides me is my room-mate, Phil Meeks, from Derby, who has organised the itinerary for my entire stay, in military fashion, I might add.

There is going to be very little time for relaxation on this trip.

Yes, it’s a work related trip, with an element of tension built in.

Far from glamorous, but someone has to do it.

Phil’s East Midlands accent and my South Wales accent appear to be an endless source of amusement to neighbouring passengers on the flight.

As many loyal readers and followers already know, people watching is something that I really enjoy and can be considered one of my favourite past-times; I consider myself to be quite good at it.

I’ve never been good at many things.

When I was a schoolboy, I swam for Ireland three times.

Unfortunately, I never got further than the end of the North Pier in Blackpool.

But, on this plane trip, the tables have turned and more than a few of the international passengers are discretely watching and eaves-dropping our conversations – probably not understanding a word and trying to figure out our accents.

I’m reminded that travel broadens the mind.

But, in my case, also the waistline.

Best wishes from this side of the ‘Pond’.

If I see Donald, I’ll give him everyone’s regards . . .

——————-

You can follow Phil Evans on Twitter @philevanswales and www.philevans.co.uk

A Senior A&E Consultant at Withybush General Hospital has thrown her support behind ambitious proposals by Hywel Dda to develop a new major hospital with state of the art facilities between Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.

With just two weeks to go until Hywel Dda’s Big NHS Change consultation ends, Dr Nicola Drake said she was “very positive” about the proposals, which would mark a “sea-change” shift in the way Emergency Care could be provided in the future and prevent patients with urgent care needs from having to wait to be seen at busy A&E departments.

Hywel Dda’s Medical Director, Dr Phil Kloer, also said that around 40 per cent of patients who were currently occupying beds in the health board’s four hospitals wouldn’t need to be there if community and primary care services were also radically overhauled under the consultation proposals.

Dr Drake added: “As an A&E consultant I’m quite biased towards whatever system is in place that best helps us to see and treat patients with emergency care needs, which is why I’m very supportive of the proposals that the health board is putting forward.

“We’ve got to change, it’s as simple as that.  Under the current system, within Accident and Emergency, we are doing everything humanly possible to see and treat patients who come to us with life-threatening emergencies, but far too often they’re turning up in an ambulance and there just isn’t a space for them.

So we can treat them and stabilise them and then they have to wait, basically, somewhere in the A&E department or in the back of an ambulance until an inpatient bed becomes available elsewhere in the hospital.  The problem is that those hospital beds have often already been taken up by people who have been admitted, and in many cases are actually well enough to be discharged, but who don’t have a nursing home place or care plan in place to help them when they’re discharged because of the way the existing health and social care system works.

“I know the plans [for a new hospital] are causing a lot of concern locally and l completely understand why some residents would feel worried or angry about their local A&E department moving further away from them, but I can’t emphasise enough that what we’re talking about here is a whole-system change – a complete transformation not just of emergency care, but also the way that people access it. It’s not just about Hywel Dda changing – the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust (WAST) and the Wales Air Ambulance, as well as neighbouring health boards, would also have a big part to play.

“So that’s the challenge we all face – we’ve got to change and I think the plans that the health board have put forward represent the best, safest and most accessible way of doing that.”

As well as the benefit to patients of having more senior clinical decision-makers at the front door of a single A&E department in west Wales, the health board’s ambition is to be able to provide more specialist services in a new major hospital – these currently have to be commissioned elsewhere – which, together with a cutting edge research and learning environment, would significantly help in attracting more doctors, nurses and support service staff to come and work in the area.

Hywel Dda’s Executive Medical Director & Director of Clinical Strategy, Dr Phil Kloer, added: “In terms of new roles it’s not just the doctors we’re trying to attract to Hywel Dda; this is about our whole multi- agency workforce too, so we would expect new roles for nurses, therapists, physician associates and others, including paramedics, to take on leadership roles – leading care where the doctor isn’t really needed there on a daily basis.”

Top tips to cope with the heatwave from Carmarthenshire Council . .

Take care of yourself, and others around you…

Look out for others

• Keep an eye out for people who are more vulnerable to the heat – older people in particular can suffer.
• Call round to family, friends and neighbours to make sure they are okay. Offer to help – maybe even just popping to the shops on their behalf. Ask them if they need extra support

Keep cool

• Take regular cool showers or baths
• Drink regularly, but avoid drinks containing caffeine, sugary drinks such as cola, and alcohol – water or fruit juice is best
• Eat more cold foods, such as salads, which contain water
• Reduce levels of physical exertion
• Wear loose-fitting cotton clothing
• Always wear a high-protection sunscreen, sunglasses, and a sunhat when outdoors

At home

• Keep out the heat by keeping curtains and blinds closed throughout the day
• Once the temperature has cooled outside, open windows to let in fresh air, but close them at night
• Spray the ground outside windows with water to cool the air, but take care not to create a slip hazard

Symptoms of heatstroke and heat exhaustion include:

• Drowsiness, faintness, or changes in behaviour
• Increased body temperature
• Difficulty breathing and increased heart rate
• Dehydration, nausea or vomiting
• Worsening health problems, especially of heart or respiratory system

If you suspect someone has heatstroke or heat exhaustion, get help and then:

• Take their temperature
• If possible, move them somewhere cooler
• Cool them down quickly by sprinkling them with water, or wrapping them in a damp sheet; use a fan
• Encourage them to drink fluids