Bristish MPs summon Facebook CEO to answer MPs, NHS workers closer to a pay raise and more trending news

• Posted on March 21, 2018
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

British MPs gave Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg less than a week to explain the use of its data by political advertising firm Cambridge Analytica. Digital, culture, media and sport committee chair Damian Collins summoned Zuckerberg in a public letter to give testimony in person before March 26. Previous high-level Facebook representatives, he said, “consistently understated risk” and were “misleading to the committee” looking into misinformation on the platform. The committee will today take evidence from former Facebook operations manager Sandy Parakilas. Meanwhile, Cambridge Analytica suspended CEO Alexander Nix over his statements secretly recorded by Channel 4, pending a full investigation.

More than a million NHS workers could be getting a pay raise of 6.5% on average over the next three years. The government has given up demands that workers give up a day’s leave in exchange for the raise after a pay cap that lasted since 2010. The deal, which will cost Treasury £4.2 bn over the period, is expected to be unveiled and agreed later today by unions and ministers after months of talks.

Carpetright is reportedly seeking emergency funding amid a restructure threatening the future of the brand.  Sky News report the chain of 400 stores needed £10m from prospective lenders to keep its doors open. It’s the latest in a string of stores facing restructures and closures; creditors of fashion retailer New Look and restaurant chain Prezzo will this week vote on the brands’ futures, while Toys R Us UK and electrical chain Maplin went into administration this month. Carpetright previously indicated it was fighting competition from rival flooring chain Tapi – launched by Martin Harris, the son of Carpetright’s founder Philip Harris.

Grandparent carers are not getting all they deserve despite being the unpaid labour that keeps millions of British parents in the workforce. The State Pension offers National Insurance Credits worth up to £230 a year to carers of children under 12, yet insurance firm Royal London estimated only 10% of babysitter grandparents were claiming the benefit. The insurance firm used a Freedom of Information request to HM Customs and Revenue to determine only 9,486 applied for the credits in the year to September 2017. The data also showed that figure, while low, was a seven-fold increase on the year before.

Asos is the company where UK professionals most want to work now. The online retailer comes in first on LinkedIn’s Top Companies list in the UK, which is based on billions of actions taken by LinkedIn’s 546 million members worldwide (25 million in the UK alone). The list highlights the country’s most sought-after employers – the firms that have figured out how to attract and keep top talent. • See the full list and join the conversation:

Idea of the Day: “Winning in life is truly not so much about being right as it is about getting it right,” says ACT-1 Group’s Janice Bryant Howroyd. But that’s easy to forget — so often we’re blinded by the idea of winning rather than finding a solution.

“Most arguments, at root, are not born from wanting different things, but from seeing different ways to get to a same result. Ask yourself, ‘Is this argument about what I want, or about how I win?’”

What’s your take? Join the conversations on today’s stories in the comments.

By: Cayla Dengate

Photo credit: AP Photo/Jeff Roberson