By Vicki Owen

BP announced today that Dame Ann Dowling will join its board as a non-executive director. The head of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where she is Professor of Mechanical Engineering, is taking up her new role this week. 

BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg says: ‘I welcome Ann Dowling to the board. Ann has a strong academic and engineering background and I look forward to her contribution to our discussions.’

Dowling has held visiting posts at MIT and Caltech and has had strong links with industry throughout her career, BP says.

Facts about Dame Ann Dowling:

- Her research is primarily in the fields of combustion, fluid mechanics, vibration and noise, and is aimed mainly at the transport and energy sectors.

- She is one of the founders of the Energy Efficient Cities initiative in Cambridge. 

- She is chairman to the University Gas Turbine Partnership (UGTP) with Rolls-Royce in which a range of technologies are researched for the next generations of aero and industrial gas turbines.

- She was UK lead of the Silent Aircraft Initiative, a collaboration between researchers at Cambridge and MIT, which led to the development of a conceptual design for a novel, ultra-low noise, fuel-efficient aircraft that has helped set the scene for NASA’s long-term vision.

- She is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering, Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and of the French Academy of Sciences.

- She has an Honorary ScD degree from Trinity College Dublin and an Honorary Fellowship from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

- She has served on a number of industry and government advisory bodies.

- She chaired the Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering study on Nanotechnology and is chairing the Physical Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics Panel in the Research Excellence Framework – the UK government’s review of research in universities.

- She was appointed CBE by the Queen for services to Mechanical Engineering in 2002, and DBE for services to Science in 2007.

[Reuters] Mark Zuckerberg may be retaining tight control over the company when it floats, but he isn’t the only one running the company. Critically he has surrounded himself with experienced executives.

These are some of the key personalities behind Zuckerberg and Facebook – the world’s largest social network.

1. Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive and co-founder

Zuckerberg, portrayed as a brilliant, ambitious and ruthless empire-builder in the 2010 movie “The Social Network,” founded Facebook with Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin while at Harvard University in 2004.

The 27-year-old frontman, who has repeatedly said he was in no rush to go public because that might distract employees and dilute his control, decides the direction and product strategy of the company.

Forbes estimates Zuckberg’s net worth at $17.5 billion, making him the 14th richest man in the United States.

2. Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer and Zuckerberg’s top lieutenant

Sandberg, one of the most powerful women in Silicon Valley, oversees business operations including sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy and communications.

Another former Google employee, Sandberg built and managed Google’s online sales channels for advertising and publishing and operations for consumer products. Before working for Google, she was chief of staff at the Treasury Department under President Clinton.

Zuckerberg’s 533.8 million shares in Facebook are worth almost $16 billion, based on a per-share value of $29.76 that the company assigned to its restricted stock units on 31st December. As a result, Zuckerberg, following the example set by Apple founder Steve Jobs, agreed to decrease his compensation from $1.48 million last year to $1.00 effective Jan. 1, 2013.

By comparison, Sheryl Sandberg earned $30.8 million in total compensation last year.

3. Peter Thiel, investor and director

The billionaire Stanford alumnus and former Wall Street trader was Facebook’s first outside investor and director. Thiel co-founded online payments service PayPal and sold it to eBay Inc for $1.5 billion in 2002.

4. Christopher Cox, vice president of product

Cox organizes Facebook’s product strategy and oversees product management and design. He joined the company in 2005 as a software engineer and was involved in the first versions of Facebook features such as the News Feed and Inbox.

5. Dan Rose, vice president of partnerships

A former Amazon.com Inc manager who helped develop the “Kindle” digital book reader, Rose oversees Facebook’s partnerships, forging ties with Hollywood film studios, game makers, mobile phone companies and even carmakers. Rose also takes the lead on mergers and acquisitions.

6. David Fischer, vice president of advertising and global operations

Fischer is responsible for much of Facebook’s vast and highly profitable advertising network. He runs sales, advertiser marketing and customer operations. During seven years at Google Inc, Fischer helped build that company’s online ad network into the largest in the world.

Before that, he was deputy chief of staff at the Treasury Department during the Clinton Administration.

Unison said the agreement with Bury Council settles a number of equal pay claims from women who were paid less than their male colleagues for doing work of equivalent value. Bury was the first council that Unison targeted with mass litigation for equal pay in 2007.

The union said the council has “wasted” more than £1 million of public money by fighting the claims through the courts. The lengthy legal battle has included more than 30 days of tribunal and appeal tribunal hearings.

Unison said the deal was worth several million pounds to the women. The settlement means that a Court of Appeal hearing, scheduled for March, will no longer go ahead, said the union.

Unison official Steve Stott, said: “This is a great day for the low paid women carers, cleaners, caterers and many others working for Bury council. They have been waiting long enough for pay justice.

“It’s also an historical day – this is the first council that Unison targeted with a mass litigation case for equal pay, after it failed to take the issue of fairness seriously.

“We are pleased that the council has at last accepted its responsibility to treat its women workers fairly. Most of the women’s claims which were first lodged in 2007 and for nearly five years the council has been wasting precious public money trying to defend the indefensible.”

Pay analysts Incomes Data Services (IDS) said around two thirds of 30 awards recorded this year were worth at least 3% compared with a median rise of 2.5% in 2011.

Wage rises in the motor industry have been worth a median of 4% since the start of the year, while other manufacturing sectors such as engineering have also reported higher rises than last year.

Ken Mulkearn, of IDS, said: “Private sector pay settlements look like they could be higher on average than last year, but the picture so far is only a partial one.

“If this turns out to be the case, and inflation continues to fall, private sector workers are likely to welcome the prospect of an easing-off in the squeeze on their incomes that most of them experienced over the past 12 months.”

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber commented: “Employees will hope that these early indications of an easing in wage restraint spread beyond manufacturing and into the rest of the economy.

“But we’re still a long way away from wages keeping pace with prices, let alone making up for years of real terms pay cuts, and we’ll need sustained wage growth to deliver the boost in consumer spending that our economy still desperately needs.

“Union negotiators will be looking to factor the current corporate cash glut into decent pay settlements.”

Employment in the manufacturing sector was broadly unchanged in January, with the improvement in payroll numbers in small and medium-sized enterprises offset by cuts implemented at large-sized companies.

Samuel Tombs, an economist at Capital Economics, said the survey increased the chances that the overall economy returned to growth in the first quarter.

However, he added: “With only one month of the quarter having passed and the headwinds from the eurozone likely to intensify, it is far too early to say that the economy has avoided a renewed recession.”

Pay analysts Incomes Data Services (IDS) said around two thirds of 30 awards recorded this year were worth at least 3% compared with a median rise of 2.5% in 2011.

Wage rises in the motor industry have been worth a median of 4% since the start of the year, while other manufacturing sectors such as engineering have also reported higher rises than last year.

Ken Mulkearn, of IDS, said: “Private sector pay settlements look like they could be higher on average than last year, but the picture so far is only a partial one.

“If this turns out to be the case, and inflation continues to fall, private sector workers are likely to welcome the prospect of an easing-off in the squeeze on their incomes that most of them experienced over the past 12 months.”

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber commented: “Employees will hope that these early indications of an easing in wage restraint spread beyond manufacturing and into the rest of the economy.

“But we’re still a long way away from wages keeping pace with prices, let alone making up for years of real terms pay cuts, and we’ll need sustained wage growth to deliver the boost in consumer spending that our economy still desperately needs.

“Union negotiators will be looking to factor the current corporate cash glut into decent pay settlements.”

The number of company personnel jobs has increased 20-fold since the 1950s, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) also found.

A report to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year showed dramatic changes in the world of work and industry, with fewer skilled manual workers and more managerial, professional and technical jobs, as well as more pay inequality.

The number of people in work has increased by six million to 29 million, but one in four people are part-timers, compared to just 4% in the 1950s.

The value of output produced by the economy has quadrupled since 1952, but work-related stress has increased and the rapid advance of technology has led to information “overload”, said the CIPD.

The number of manufacturing jobs has fallen from 8.7 million to 2.5 million, while trade union membership has slumped by three million to 6.5 million.

John Philpott, the CIPD’s chief economic adviser, said: “In the six decades of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, work has continued to be the warp and weft of everyday life.

“Her Majesty’s subjects may devote more of their available time and money to leisure pursuits but even though work has changed in ways that could not be imagined in 1952, the UK still shows no sign of becoming the kind of leisure society predicted by the ‘end of work’ futurologists of yesteryear.

“Although five years into the Queen’s reign as our nation was emerging from post-war austerity the then prime minister Harold MacMillan declared that Britain “had never had it so good”, the average material standard of living was very meagre compared with what in 2012 we also call ‘austerity Britain’.

“Yet in our more unequal society, with the threat of unemployment an underlying concern even during good times, people do not seem much happier about their working lives and many exhibit the symptoms of work-related stress.

“Whatever the future of work, the lesson of the past six decades is that increased productivity and prosperity isn’t enough to enhance the common good in the workplace or society in general.”

The study also showed a widening pay gap between men and women, even though more women are now in employment.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said adult apprenticeships offered a good return of around £18 for every £1 of public spending.

The spending watchdog said apprenticeships had expanded by 140% over a four-year period from 2006/7, with over 25-year-olds accounting for two thirds of the increase.

The biggest growth was in health and social care, customer services, retail, management and business administration, with just 2% each in engineering and computing.

Nine out of 10 apprentices were satisfied with their training, but a fifth of apprenticeships only lasted six months in 2010/11 and only a third were at an advanced level, compared with 60% in France.

The programme was well co-ordinated and better managed than the previous Train to Gain scheme, said the NAO, but it added that the Business Department could significantly improve value for money by targeting resources on areas where the greatest economic returns can be achieved.

Amyas Morse, head of the NAO said: “The apprenticeships programme has been providing a good return for public spending. Nevertheless, the Department should set its sights higher in order to get better value from the 0.5 billion pounds and rising now spent on adult apprenticeships each year.

“It needs to target resources more effectively, confirm the training provided is in addition to what would have been provided without public support and make sure that the funding system is informed by robust information on the cost of delivery.”

Margaret Hodge, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, commented: “The apprenticeship programme has grown rapidly since 2006 and is benefiting both employers and apprentices, but there needs to be much greater focus on getting value for money from the 0.5 billion pounds spent each year.

“There are troubling signs that the apprenticeship market is not working as intended. Many employers are not paying their share towards training costs, the payments made to providers do not always reflect the costs of delivering training, and apprenticeships are concentrated in a small number of areas.”

Skills Minister John Hayes said: “Unprecedented investment, backed by tough new measures to ensure that quality matches quantity, has helped make apprenticeships the gold standard vocational qualification.

“So I am delighted that the NAO has recognised the progress we have made and that they identify the extraordinary economic benefits of apprenticeships. Few, if any, other Government programmes produce anything like the return of £18 for every £1 spent, let alone the still greater return that our economists estimate.”

A separate report by vocational organisation City & Guilds showed that businesses would receive a £4.3 billion boost if a million extra apprenticeship places were created by 2013.

A study ahead of Apprenticeship Week, which starts on Monday, showed that the economy would also benefit from increased tax and national insurance contributions.

Chief executive Chris Jones said: “Our report findings clearly show that it is vital that we meet the Government’s ambition of achieving an additional one million apprenticeship starts by 2013.

“Apprenticeships work for both businesses and individuals – providing companies with a skilled workforce to help them grow and giving people of all ages hands-on experience, guidance and qualifications, to help them develop real skills in their chosen career.

“Not only will these apprenticeships inject a much-needed financial boost into our struggling economy, but they will also help tackle the current unemployment levels and ensure that businesses have the skills they need for their future growth.”

>> Or why not take a look at our Managing Staff or Management Development sections where there’s a host of expert advice on hand.

A reader asks: “Three of my staff have got volunteer positions at the Olympics, but we can’t afford for all of them to be off at the same time. How do we choose who should participate? And should the leave be paid?

Caroline Noblet, partner at law firm Squire Sanders Hammonds, responds:

About  78,000 people will be volunteering between July 27 and August 12 for the Olympics and August 29 and September 9 for the Paralympics.

The 70,000 ‘Games Makers’ were asked to volunteer for a minimum of ten days (20 days if volunteering for both events) and attend three days’ training. The 8,000 London Ambassadors will volunteer for at least six days in a row, also with three days’ training.

Volunteers may not be told which days they are required until April, so now is a good time to think about how to deal with requests for time off.

If your company has no policy on the issue, there are many methods to ensure fair selection.

You might do it on a first-come, first-served basis or hold a draw. Or you could decide which employee will gain most from the opportunity.

This discretion should be exercised carefully, to avoid allegations of discrimination.

Staff have no legal right to take time off for volunteering or be paid for it. That is up to you.

Some employers recognise the business benefits of volunteering and encourage staff to pursue opportunities, though without pay. Other employers go further and may offer a number of paid days off for that specific purpose.

If you do give employees time off to volunteer, any days over and above the agreed volunteering ‘allowance’ can be taken as part of the employee’s holiday entitlement or as unpaid leave. Short-term flexible working arrangements may be another option.

>> For more advice and issues raised speicifically by the Olympics, for employees and managers at SMEs, click here

[Reuters] Nicola Horlick, one of the most high-profile women in Britain’s financial industry, is launching a business aimed at making it easier for wealthy individuals to make private equity investments.

Rockpool Investments, which Horlick is launching with two former 3i Group executives, will try to capitalise on recent regulatory changes in Britain designed to encourage greater investment in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Horlickfirst made headlines in 1997 for successfully confronting Deutsche Bank over her suspension as Managing Director of its UK unit Morgan Grenfell Asset Management amid allegations she was planning to defect to a rival firm with her team.

She flew to Frankfurt along with 40 journalists to watch as she demanded her bosses reinstate her.

Her recent record has been more mixed.

Horlick faced intense criticism after Bramdean Asset Management, a London-based investment house which she founded and still runs as chief executive, lost $20 million of investors’ money to Bernard Madoff’s ponzi scheme in 2008.

A battle followed with property magnate Vincent Tchenguiz, who had invested about 40 million pounds in Bramdean at its float and successfully pushed to replace the board after the losses came to light.

Bramdean sold the bulk of its funds business to Aberdeen Asset Management in 2009.

Rockpool will seek to exploit the growing demand for individual investments in SMEs as bank financing becomes harder to come by.

Under changes to the UK’s Enterprise Investment Scheme, individuals can now reclaim more of the cost of investments in SMEs against income tax, while the number of eligible companies – and the amount they can raise in any one year – has increased.

Rockpool will seek to sign up rich private investors to its network happy to invest a minimum of 25,000 pounds per deal. The business will focus on deals requiring between 2 and 10 million pounds of equity.

Horlickwill take on the role of Chairman at Rockpool, with Gary Robins, formerly chief executive of Hotbed and Matt Taylor, a former partner at Foresight Group, jointly managing the business.

Last year Horlicktold Reuters she was planning to set up a a “fund-supermarket type-platform.”

At the time she also said she was setting up a chain of private member clubs in London’s suburbs, to be named after her late daughter, Georgina, as well as pursuing a $150 million farmland deal in Brazil’s Bahia region for two UK institutions. (Read more here)

[Press Association] The Government’s controversial public sector pension reforms are unlikely to save money in the long term, according to a report by a research group.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said savings from higher pension ages were offset by other elements of pensions becoming more generous, with lower earners generally becoming better off.

Higher earners were likely to lose out, with the move from final salary to career average schemes penalising workers who have big pay increases over time, said the report.

The IFS study also found that the current pay freeze in the public sector and plans to peg future rises to 1% will leave public pay as it was in 2008, before the recession.

The Government’s decision to move indexation of public sector pensions from RPI to the generally lower CPI measure of inflation “substantially” reduces costs and generosity, said the report.

Carl Emmerson, deputy director of the IFS, said: “The reforms to public service pensions implemented by the last Labour government and this Government’s decision to switch from RPI to CPI indexation of pension benefits will in the long run reduce the generosity and therefore the cost of these schemes to the taxpayer.

“But the consequence of the long, drawn-out negotiations over the latest reform appears to be little or no long-term saving to the taxpayer or reduction in generosity, on average, of pensions for public service workers.”

Wenchao Jin, a research economist at the IFS, added: “There is evidence of considerable variation in the estimated public sector pay premium across the regions of the UK. This suggests that, on average, more generous pay awards in, for example, the South East and less generous pay awards in, for example, Wales and Northern Ireland might be appropriate.

“But the analysis also suggests that the regional pattern varies across public sector occupations. So while a shift to centrally set, but regionally varied, pay awards might be appropriate, these should be carefully implemented.”

:: The Association of Teachers and Lecturers, which represents 160,000 teachers, has decided to accept the pension reforms following the results of a poll of members in which 91.6% of respondents voted in favour of the proposals.

Leaders of other unions are discussing further walkouts because of continued opposition to the Government’s reforms.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “This report examines only one of the three major changes to public sector pensions. As its analysis concedes, the switch to CPI indexation has had a huge impact on future pensions. Similarly the big increase in contributions immediately reduces the cost of public sector pensions by taking a big chunk out of most public servants’ pay.

“The IFS draws its conclusions only from changes in scheme design, where union negotiators – aided by the great support for the TUC’s day of action on November 30 – were able to win concessions. But if you take the package as a whole there can be no doubt that many public sector workers may have to pay more, work longer and get a pension that will not keep up with the proper measure of the cost of living.”

Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said: “Overall, the majority of public sector workers will pay more, work longer, and get less. The report reinforces what Unite has repeatedly argued on the pensions issue.”

Brian Strutton, national officer of the GMB, said: “Only a week ago the Prime Minister said at Davos that public sector pension reform will save 50% of the costs while now the IFS says the savings are zero.

“What is clear is that future costs are pure guesswork, but what is real is the impact on public sector workers – higher contributions, lower benefits and later retirement.”

The GMB executive will meet next month and is likely to refer the final proposals to members, said Mr Strutton, adding: “The negative impact on them may be why they may well say no and instead opt for further action.”

Dave Prentis, Unison general secretary, said: “Ask any low-paid public sector worker and they’ll tell you how much their families are struggling financially.

“Those on low incomes spend the vast majority of their wages on the bare essentials. A recent Unison survey revealed that many of our members are even cutting back on basics such as food, fuel or clothes for their children.

“It is in everyone’s interest for there to be decent public sector pensions schemes that are sustainable and that people want to join. The alternative is a massive means-tested benefits bill for the taxpayer later on down the line.”

A Treasury spokesman said: “Reforms to public service pensions will save the taxpayer tens of billions of pounds over the next few decades and significantly improve the long-term fiscal sustainability of this country.

“As Lord Hutton has made clear ‘the status quo is untenable’.

“These savings are achieved by a number of changes, including asking people to work longer, pay higher contributions and changing the way pensions keep pace with inflation in retirement. These have to be seen as a whole package and were negotiated as such.

“This analysis only looks at one of these elements and as such is partial and misleading.

“Asking people to work to state pension age will, as the IFS acknowledge, deliver savings to the taxpayer. This is because people people working longer will pay more tax and contributions and receive pensions for less time in retirement.”