G4S Deal With Police Forces Collapses

Multimillion-pound plans by three police forces to outsource services to the firm at the centre of the Olympics security debacle have collapsed.

Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire police were working with G4S in a bid to save £73m by hiving off human resources, IT and finance work.

But their newly-appointed commissioners have decided to drop the plans - while still making clear that they would consider working with other companies.

Doubts had been raised about the plans after G4S was forced to admit serious failings in its Olympics contract last summer, which led to more police and soldiers being called in.

Hertfordshire police and crime commissioner David Lloyd said: "I have always said that I would make my decision once the evidence was received and assessed.

"It is now clear that the G4S framework contract through Lincolnshire Police was not suitable for the unique position of the three forces."

However, he confirmed he was already in talks with other companies and would keep open the prospect of working with G4S in Hertfordshire.

"I still believe that substantial elements of policing support services will be best delivered by the private sector and will ensure that this option is immediately pursued," he said.

Police and crime commissioner for Bedfordshire, Olly Martins, said he was "pleased" with the joint decision but added: "We do still have to save money.

"Strengthening the ways in which we collaborate with Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire is a crucial element of our on-going investment in all our police services," he said.

Kim Challis, chief executive of G4S Government and outsourcing solutions, said its "compelling proposition" would have guaranteed savings of £100m over 10 years.

"Our proposition was to operate back office services at the volume and scale required to deliver significant savings to forces, enabling them to concentrate their resources on frontline roles: it was never about replacing police officers," he said.

"This has already proved to be the case in Lincolnshire, where we have a successful partnership which, in less than a year, has seen us deliver savings in running costs of around 16%.

"We continue to work with a number of signatory forces on the Lincolnshire Police contract, including Hertfordshire, to see how we can help them to generate the savings they need."

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Nintendo Forecasts Fewer Games Console Sales

Games company Nintendo has cut sales forecasts for its flagship Wii U, 3DS and DS consoles.

Its full-year sales forecast for the financial year to March 2013 is four million for the Wii U console, down from a previous estimate of five and a half million.

The Wii U, the firm's latest big product, went on worldwide sale in November and December last year with the hope of boosting Nintendo's fortunes.

Sales predictions for the 3DS hand-held console and the older Nintendo DS have also been revised - from 17.5 million to 15 million, and 2.5 million to 2.3 million.

However, there was some positive news for the Japanese firm.

After reporting its first ever annual loss of 43.2bn yen (£329m) in April 2012, the company is now back in the black, with profits of 14.55bn yen (£102m) for April to December last year.

Despite the lower sales expectations, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has previously denied that smartphones are a threat to his business.

But casual gamers are increasingly being drawn to low-cost titles they can play on the move, or for free on the internet.

Titles such as Temple Run, Angry Birds and Farmville now attract millions of users on mobile devices and through sites like Facebook.

Overall game console sales also fell by a third in the UK in 2012, according to the latest industry figures.

Nintendo says it is hoping to boost the popularity of its 3DS and Wii U consoles by bringing out a string of 'fan-favourite' titles over the next year.

Games in the Super Mario, Legend of Zelda and Wii Fit series are all due for release.

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Toyota Recall Over Airbag And Wiper Faults

Toyota has launched a global recall of more than one million cars, including those fitted with airbags that can be triggered inadvertently by electrical interference from other vehicles.

It said a computer chip in the airbag control unit can malfunction when it receives electrical impulse from other cars.

The fault means there does not need to be any impact for the airbags to deploy.

The problem has caused minor injuries such as abrasions in 18 cases that have been reported, Toyota spokesman Naoto Fuse said.

Two accidents have been reported by customers outside Japan, although Toyota has not been able to confirm them, he added.

The airbag recall affects 752,000 Corolla and Corolla Matrix vehicles in the United States.

Toyota UK has confirmed to Sky News that the fault only affects left-hand drive, non-European vehicles.

Toyota said it will add an electrical signal filter to the airbag control module to the recalled vehicles - repairs expected to take an hour to hour-and-a-half, according to Mr Fuse.

The spokesman declined to disclose the costs involved for the recall.

The news comes just days after Toyota was crowned the world's top-selling carmaker.

Separately, Toyota will also recall 385,000 Lexus IS and its series, including 270,000 Lexus IS vehicles in the US, over windscreen wiper problems.

The wiper arm nut of the front wiper in the affected vehicles may not be tight enough and the wiper may not work under certain weather occasions, including in snow.

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Spain GDP Shrinks For Sixth Straight Quarter

Spain has sunk even deeper into recession, according to latest figures.

The struggling eurozone country saw its gross domestic product (GDP) shrink by 0.7% in the fourth quarter.

The contraction was worse than expected and means Spain has now suffered six straight quarters of negative growth.

Spain's economy contracted by a total of 1.37% in 2012 and year-on-year GDP has contracted for five quarters.

Statistics showed Spain's economy shrank at the fastest pace in a year, as budget cutbacks and increasing unemployment prompted households to slash spending even more.

On Tuesday it was revealed that Spanish retail sales over the Christmas period were down more than 10% on the year before.

The National Statistics Institute (NSI) said the latest GDP estimate would be finalised on February 28 when the official figure is released.

Last week the NSI said the jobless rate for the last three months of 2012, for those aged 16 to 24, had soared to 55.13%.

The unemployment figure for young people was up from 52.34% in the previous quarter.

Overall, Spain's unemployment rate has risen to its highest level since measurements began in the 1970s, as a prolonged recession and deep spending cuts have left almost six million people out of work at the end of last year.

The nationwide jobless total rose 1% to 26.02% in the fourth quarter of 2012, or 5.97 million people, according to the NSI.

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Exclusive: Ex-HMRC Head Joins HSBC Crime Fight

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

HSBC is to recruit a line-up of heavyweight figures including Britain's former top taxman to oversee a new effort to combat financial crime following the bank's $1.9bn settlement of money-laundering allegations late last year.

I have learnt that Dave Hartnett, former head of Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC), and Bill Hughes, former head of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, are among a group that will head a new financial crime committee that will be set up to ensure tighter compliance with tightening global regulations.

The formation of the committee, which will report directly to Douglas Flint, HSBC's chairman, and Stuart Gulliver, its chief executive, is expected to be announced today, according to insiders at the bank.

It follows HSBC's settlement in December of allegations by US regulators that it had moved billions of dollars in cash from its affiliate in Mexico to the US despite concerns raised with HSBC that the money could only have involved proceeds from illegal drugs.

The $1.9bn (£1.2bn) fine was the largest ever handed out to a bank.

Mr Gulliver said at the time of the settlement:

"We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again. The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different organisation from the one that made those mistakes.

"Over the last two years, under new senior leadership, we have been taking concrete steps to put right what went wrong and to participate actively with government authorities in bringing to light and addressing these matters."

Under the terms of the settlement, HSBC's business in the US is subject to strict supervision over a five-year period, although it averted the worst-case scenario of being stripped of its licence to operate there.

The creation of the financial crime sub-committee will be presented by the bank as an attempt to demonstrate its determination to prevent a repeat of the Mexican scandal.

HSBC, which declined to comment, is also understood to have been in talks with Nick Fishwick, a former MI6 officer, about joining the financial crime committee, although the final line-up was unclear on Wednesday morning.

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Tax Deadline: 1.8m Still To File Returns

By Pete Norman, Sky News Online

Nearly two million people have still to file their self-assessment tax returns before tomorrow's deadline, Sky News has learned.

Although a total of 8.8 million returns have so far been filed, a further 1.8 million must get their online returns in before Thursday's midnight deadline to avoid being hit with an automatic penalty.

The £100 fine for filing of the self-assessment document on February 1 or later is imposed even if workers have already paid any tax due for the year or no tax is liable.

An HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) spokesman told Sky News: "If you still haven't sent in your tax return, you've got until tomorrow to file to avoid a penalty – and please also make sure to pay what you owe."

The Tax Office said that on Tuesday a total of 321,000 people filed the returns - at a rate of 13,375 an hour.

In recent years HMRC has bolstered its online data facilities to try and keep pace with online filing.

There has been a near-doubling of people filing tax returns over the internet during the past five years.

In January 2008, 45.9% of the 9.3 million returns were filed online and the figure topped 80.9% of 10.5 million returns by last January.

HMRC recently revealed that on Christmas Day 1,548 people also filled in forms while another 4,685 people filed on Boxing Day.

On January 31, 2012 a technical fault left deadline day self-assessment taxpayers unable to check their payment status.

Sky News understands the fault was caused by outside payment service providers and not internal Tax Office systems.

The glitch occurred as HMRC was inundated with returns on deadline day.

Days later HMRC said that a total of 90.4% of taxpayers had met that self-assessment deadline, by filing online or on paper forms.

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Fuel Prices: Cost At Pump 'Is Fair'

The road fuel sector is "working well" according to a report into the UK's £47bn market by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

The regulator said high prices at the pumps were a result of increasing crude oil prices and taxes - not a lack of competition.

In the 10 years between 2003 and 2012, petrol prices increased from 76p per litre (ppl) to 136ppl, and diesel rose from 78ppl to 142ppl.

But the OFT stressed that over this period, taxes and duties rose by 24ppl and crude oil went up 33ppl.

It said had not identified any evidence of anti-competitive behaviour at a national level - where competition was strong - but admitted there could be some issues at a local level.

The regulator also found "very limited evidence" that oil and gas companies do not pass on lower crude oil prices to retailers and motorists as quickly as they could.

In 2012 supermarkets sold almost 40% of the UK's road fuel

It comes amid concerns that pump prices rise quickly when the wholesale price of crude oil goes up but fall more slowly when it drops.

The chief executive of the OFT, Clive Maxwell, said: "We recognise that there has been widespread mistrust in how this market is operating.

"However, our analysis suggests that competition is working well, and rises in pump prices over the past decade or so have largely been down to increases in tax and the cost of crude oil."

The report did find that fuel is often significantly more expensive at motorway service stations - in August, prices were on average 7.5ppl more for petrol and diesel was 8.3ppl higher.

As a result, the regulator called for the Department for Transport to consider introducing new road signs displaying prices to drivers before they pull into a service station.

The OFT said the growing influence of supermarkets had been a key feature of the sector over the past decade.

The 'big four' - Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons - have increased their share of road fuel sold in the UK from 29% in 2004 to 39% in 2012.

The report recognised that many independent dealers had found it difficult to compete, with the total number of forecourts falling from 10,867 in 2004 to 8,677 in 2012.

But the OFT also said that - pre-tax - the UK has some of the cheapest road fuel prices in Europe.

As a result of its findings, the regulator will not launch a full investigation into the road fuel market - despite calls for one from campaigners.

Quentin Wilson, from campaign group FairFuelUK, said UK consumers would be disappointed by the OFT's findings.

"Every motorist and business in Britain instinctively knows that 'something's not right'," he said.

"The Americans and the Germans are holding inquiries – why aren't we?

"The OFT appears to have failed to address the key issues of why diesel is more expensive than unleaded in the UK when this is not the case in Europe, why falls in the oil price take so long to be reflected at the pump and why there are such variations in price."

But oil analyst Malcolm Graham-Wood from VSA Capital welcomed the report.

"This totally concurs with our own view that there is no collaboration and that retail petrol prices in the UK fairly reflect the price of crude oil ... for better or worse," he said.

"Groups like FairFuelUK seem to think that just because petrol prices vary from different areas that this is due to collaboration and price fixing which is patently not the case."

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US Economy Shrinks For First Time In Three Years

The US economy shrank in the last quarter of 2012, the first contraction in more than three years.

The Commerce Department said the economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.1% in the fourth quarter.

It was a stark contrast to the 3.1% growth rate recorded during the July-September quarter.

The deepest cuts in defence spending for 40 years, fewer exports and sluggish growth in company stockpiles have been blamed.

The surprise contraction could raise fears about the economy's ability to handle tax increases that took effect in January and more looming spending cuts.

"It represents a sharp turnaround from the 3.1% expansion seen in the third quarter and confounding economists, who had on average expected to see 1.1% growth," Markit chief economist Chris Williamson said.

"The contraction was the first since the second quarter of 2009."

Food prices have come under pressure in the US due to grain price rises

Some believe the weakness may be because of one-time factors as government spending cuts and slower inventory growth subtracted a total of 2.6 percentage points from growth.

Those volatile categories offset faster growth in consumer spending, business investment and housing - the US economy's traditional core drivers of growth.

For all of 2012, the economy expanded at the rate of 2.2%, slightly up on 2011's 1.8%.

However, the economy may continue to stay weak in early 2013 as Americans come to grips with an increase in social security taxes that has left them with less take-home pay.

Subpar growth has held back hiring as the economy has only created about 150,000 jobs a month, on average, for the past two years.

That level of increase is barely enough to reduce the unemployment rate, which has remained at 7.8% for the past two months.

The Pentagon's military planners have had to slice billions from projects

Economists have forecast little change in the unemployment rate when the government releases the January jobs report on Friday.

"The details of the decline suggest that the underlying performance of the US economy is far better than the headline number suggests," Mr Williamson added.

"In particular, companies sought to cut inventories which had built up in previous months, and if the stock reduction is excluded, the economy grew at a 1.1% annualised rate.

"After a disappointing end to 2012, the first quarter of 2013 may well surprise on the upside as the economy rebounds from a temporary spell of weakness."

Companies frequently cut back on inventories if they anticipate a slowdown in sales. This in turn means factories are likely to produce less.

US economists are now waiting to see the reaction of consumers to the expiration of the social security tax cut.

Congress and the White House allowed the temporary tax cut to end in January, but reached a deal to stop income taxes from rising for most Americans.

The tax increase will lower take-home pay this year by about 2%. It means a household earning $50,000 a year will have about $1,000 less to spend, while a household with two high-paid workers will have up to $4,500 less.

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Women In The Boardroom: Cable Wants Answers

Vince Cable has asked the seven top companies with all-male boards to explain what measures they are taking to hire female executives.

The business secretary wrote a letter to the chairmen and chief executives of the last FTSE 100 companies without any female directors urging them to take action.

Miners Antofagasta, Kazakhmys and Xstrata, chemicals company Croda, commodities giant Glencore, business group Melrose and natural resources firm Vedanta received the letter.

Mr Cable, who wants no all-male FTSE 100 boards by 2015, said he was "determined" that British companies become more diverse.

"This is not about equality, this is about good governance and good business," he said.

"The international evidence supports this: diverse boards are better boards benefiting from fresh perspectives, opinions and new ideas which ultimately serve the company's long term interests."

It comes as mining company Randgold Resources announced that Jeanine Mabunda Lioko - a former minister in the Democratic Republic of Congo - had joined its board as a non-executive director.

Mr Cable added: "Successful modern companies learn to adapt and survive and doing nothing is not an option anymore.

"We've seen examples again today that this can be done and I am determined to see further action."

In November the Government welcomed the European Commission's decision not to impose mandatory quotas for women on boards.

At the time Mr Cable insisted the UK's "business-led, self-regulatory model" was the best approach.

This system was outlined in 2011 by Lord Davies who published an independent review into women on boards.

He urged FTSE 100 companies to aim for a minimum of 25% female board member representation by 2015 and FTSE 350 businesses to set "challenging" diversity targets.

Since the report was published the number all-male boards in the FTSE 100 has fallen from 21 to the seven that received Mr Cable's letter.

Lord Davies will publish an annual progress report on the number of women reaching the boards of the UK's top companies in the spring of 2013.

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AA And Saga Owner Speeds Up £4bn Debt Talks

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

The owner of the AA breakdown recovery service is accelerating talks about a refinancing of its £4bn debt pile, a move that would stall a disposal of either of its prominent operating businesses.

I understand that Acromas Holdings has in recent weeks stepped up discussions about a refinancing of its debts, although its board has yet to reach a firm decision about whether to proceed with such a move.

The company, which also owns Saga, the lifestyle brand targeted at the over-50s, has been conducting a review of its options in conjunction with its shareholders as it begins to approach a 2015 deadline for repaying parts of its debt.

Acromas is owned by Charterhouse, CVC Capital Partners and Permira, three of the UK's biggest private equity groups. The group was created in 2007 when the AA and Saga merged, and the business has been financially resilient despite the difficult economic backdrop.

The company's shareholders have also been examining a sale of the AA, a flotation of Acromas and the sale of a minority stake in the group to outside investors. People close to the company said that one of these options could yet prevail but cautioned that no formal process was under way. Last autumn, the investment banks Lazard and UBS were appointed to give advice on options.

The AA's ownership by private equity firms - it was sold to them by Centrica, the owner of British Gas - became a lightning rod for the industry's criticism by politicians and trade unions.

According to Acromas' half-year financial report in October, the company recorded an 8.3% increase in turnover, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation up 1.3% compared to the first half of the 2011-12 financial year.

Improved cash generation helped the company reduce its net bank debt to £4bn, the lowest since it was founded, Acromas said in the statement.

Acromas also owns the driving school BSM and a number of other insurance and travel brands.

An Acromas spokesman has declined to comment.

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