Counselling charity Relate set to be rescued from insolvency
Britain’s biggest relationship counselling charity looks likely to be rescued from insolvency under plans for it to be taken over.Last month, Relate was put into administration after a collapse in its funding from NHS, school and local authority contracts.On Friday, the administrators, FRP Advisory, announced that the families charity Family Action has agreed to buy Relate’s counselling and central services.It claims the move will save up to 185 jobs when Family Action takes over on 1 January.A third of Relate’s workforce – 80 staff including 40 therapists – were made redundant with immediate effect when it entered administration in November.
Many of these staff learned of their fate on a Microsoft Teams call with the management.None of the sacked staff will receive redundancy pay from the charity under the terms of the administration.Longer-serving staff who have lost their jobs have been advised to apply to a government redundancy scheme for compensation.The administrators made no mention of these posts as part of the takeover bid.The future of the sacked staff will be a decision for Family Action in any future hiring decisions.
All those made redundant are being supported by FRP,There is growing concern about the financial future of many charities as they struggle to cope with rising costs and demand, and declining donations and income from contracts,Relate offers a range of services, including couples and relationships counselling, family counselling, mediation, child therapy and sex therapy,About a third of its counselling was funded by public sector contracts, with the remainder from means-tested fees, typically between £83 and £130 a session for face-to-face adult relationship counselling,The charity will continue to operate under the Relate brand.
A federated network of local counselling services it supports – the Relate Federation – remains separate and financially independent from the entity acquired by Family Action,Family Action is a large charity running a range of services under contract to local and central government, including children’s centres, advice lines and breakfast clubs,Announcing the accelerated sale, Phil Reynolds, a restructuring advisory partner at FRP, said: “Relate is a lifeline for families across the country struggling with a range of domestic issues,We’re pleased that an unfortunate period of financial uncertainty hasn’t put a stop to that vital work,“Family Action’s track record of supporting families through change, challenge and crisis dovetails well with Relate’s mission and we’re optimistic that this deal gives the charity the foundation it needs to return to a stable footing.
”Sign up to First EditionOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersafter newsletter promotionDavid Holmes, the chief executive of Family Action, said: “We are excited about the obvious alignment between Family Action, the charity for families, and Relate, the charity for relationships, and see excellent opportunities for mutually beneficial development for our combined organisations in the future,”Relate was set up in 1938 as the Marriage Guidance Council,It became Relate in 1988 and a year later Diana, Princess of Wales increased its profile, when she became its patron,Its president is the celebrity therapist Anjula Mutanda, and past presidents include the actor and comedian Ruby Wax,Relate’s finances have been under pressure for the last few years, with austerity-era cuts in public funding triggering a series of restructuring and rebrandings, including in 2017 when a third of its federated centres were merged into the central charity.
Its last published accounts, for the year 2022-23, showed a £690,000 loss on income from its services of £6.7m, while Charity Commission filings showed its income from public sector contracts fell from £1.9m in 2019 to £338,000 in 2022-23.Levels of financial reserves had fallen to below three months’ operating costs.
More UK retailers in critical financial distress; fashion brand Quiz needs more funding soon – as it happened
Time to wrap up…After a weak Boxing Day, UK, shoppers are returning to the high street today in greater numbers than last year.New data from MRI Software shows that footfall across all UK retail destinations had risen by +8% as of 12pm, compared to 27th December 2023.That might help the sector, where the number of UK retailers on the brink of collapse has risen by a quarter in the final three months of the year, driven by a combination of rising business costs and weak consumer confidence, according to a report.The proportion of retail businesses classed as being in “critical” financial distress increased by 25% to 2,124 in the fourth quarter compared with the previous three months, the insolvency specialists Begbies Traynor said.The general retail sector is under most pressure, with a 29% quarterly increase in businesses in critical financial distress, rising to 1,457 from 1,127 in the third quarter
Number of UK retailers on brink of collapse soars by 25%
The number of UK retailers on the brink of collapse has risen by a quarter in the final three months of the year, driven by a combination of rising business costs and weak consumer confidence, according to a report.The proportion of retail businesses classed as being in “critical” financial distress increased by 25% to 2,124 in the fourth quarter compared with the previous three months, the insolvency specialists Begbies Traynor said.The general retail sector is under most pressure, with a 29% quarterly increase in businesses in critical financial distress, rising to 1,457 from 1,127 in the third quarter.In the food and drug retail sector there was a 17.2% quarterly increase, with the number of businesses facing collapse rising from 569 in the third quarter to 667 by the end of the 11th week of the final quarter of this year
Nissan shares tumble by most since August amid Honda deal worries
Shares in the Japanese carmaker Nissan have had their biggest fall since August’s stock market sell-off, as investors turned their attention to the company’s planned tie-up with domestic rivals Honda and Mitsubishi.Nissan’s shares fell by as much as 15% on Friday before regaining some losses to close down 7.8%, in a sign of investor volatility.The fall came less than two weeks after its shares soared by 20% on 17 December, after the first reports that Nissan was to begin talks on a potential merger with Honda.Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi are considering joining forces to better contend with falling sales and competition from Chinese brands
‘It’s not just a dancefloor’: the precipitous decline of UK nightclubs
When the patrons of Watford’s Pryzm nightclub celebrated New Year’s Eve on 31 December 2023, they were marking the end of an era, or rather, the end of seven eras. Like every beloved local club, the venue had been known by multiple names over the years: Top Rank, Bailey’s, Paradise Lost, Kudos, Destiny and Oceana.Now, it will be reincarnated no more, after failing to reach a deal with its landlord.One TikTok user posted a video of herself sketching an intricate iPad picture in tribute to the venue, where she had met her boyfriend. She signed it with an “RIP” and a broken heart emoji
London-listed miner pauses Mozambique operation amid political unrest
The London-listed mining company Gemfields said it had temporarily halted its ruby mining operation in Mozambique after groups “took advantage” of political unrest to set fire and attempt to invade its site, resulting in two deaths.Gemfields, one of the world’s largest miners of coloured gemstones, said more than 200 people associated with illegal ruby mining attempted to invade the residential village built by the company next to its Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM) operation in northern Mozambique on Christmas Eve.The company, which is incorporated in Guernsey and listed on the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges, said the groups were trying to take advantage of the widespread civil unrest after the controversial and disputed national election.Gemfields said on Friday that looters set fire to community buildings built by MRM and that security forces, made up of the Mozambican police and the military, protected the residential village in a “staged escalation of force” that resulted in two individuals being shot and killed.On the same day, a vocational training centre built by MRM, and operated by Mozambique’s Institute for Vocational Training and Labor Studies, in the nearby village of Wikupuri was looted and damaged
ECB faces tough task after flip in fortunes for eurozone economies
The European Central Bank is facing a tough balancing act in 2025 as it tries to navigate a reversal of fortunes in eurozone economies, as the hardest-hit nations of the 2010s debt crisis outperform the traditional core.Highlighting a potential shift in power dynamics within the single currency bloc, economists said countries in the EU periphery ravaged by last decade’s sovereign debt crisis were in a stronger position than northern Europe’s most powerful nations, including France and Germany.In a marked turnaround from a decade ago, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain are among eurozone nations expected to grow by at least 2% in 2025 – more than double the rates forecast for France and Germany by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).Carsten Brzeski, the global head of macro research at the Dutch bank ING, said: “They have flipped. There are two sides to that story
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