Editorial for Newsletter #302

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There are only a few items this week, including an update on the two new P46-type forms that will be in use from April 2009. I also can’t get too excited about double taxation conventions but I must admit to being in awe of specialists involved in international payroll matters.

The news item from Ireland makes me wonder how many readers can remember the many Wages Councils that used to be a feature of industry-based wage negotiations in the different countries of the UK? The only three remaining Wages Councils are the Wages Boards representing agricultural workers in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, wages were fixed by Wages Councils with such memorable names as “coffin furniture and cerement-making”, “hat, cap and millinery”, “keg and drum”, “rubber proofed garment making”, “pin, hook and eye snap fastener” and, my favourite, “ostrich and fancy feather and artificial flower”. Those that survived the longest were those representing the retail trades but, as I recall, and with the single exception of those operating in agriculture, they disappeared in the 1980s. If you wish to be entertained further, have a look at the Hansard written answer at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1970/may/14/review-arbitration-and-wage-fixing-bodies.

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