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Business Minister Mark Prisk has today launched a nationwide competition to find the most innovative pre-market products, processes and concepts the UK has to offer.

The Government and industry is calling on businesses and public organisations to pay suppliers on time and for small firms to pursue those who put them at risk by delaying.

Business Secretary Vince Cable today launched the fifth annual Apprenticeship Week.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has today welcomed the appointment by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Norman Lamb as Minister for Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs.

Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, John Hayes, today launched an independent review to investigate ways to improve the professional status of the further education and skills workforce.

Responding to The National Audit Office Assessment of Adult Apprenticeships, published today, John Hayes, Minister for Skills said:

"Unprecedented investment, backed by tough new measures to ensure that quality matches quantity, has helped make apprenticeships the gold standard vocational qualification.

The Business Secretary Vince Cable has received 32 bids from across the UK wanting to host the Green Investment Bank (GIB).

A new, two-year pilot scheme, launched today will provide a boost for growth by helping businesses speed up the process of patent applications in the UK and the Canada.

A new programme that will provide dedicated and structured coaching support for up to 10,000 high growth potential businesses a year has taken another step forward today. The Coaching for Growth Consortium has signed a contract to deliver the programme, which is scheduled to be fully operational by March 2012.

The importance of advanced manufacturing in growing the UK economy is the focus of Vince Cable’s first visit to Northern Ireland as Business Secretary today (31 January).

Business Secretary Vince Cable and Universities Minister David Willetts today announced that Professor Les Ebdon is the Government’s preferred candidate for the next Director of Fair Access to Higher Education.

Final statistics published today show that 457,200 apprenticeship starts were delivered in the full 2010/11 academic year. This represents a 63.5% increase on 2009/10 figures. Growth took place at all levels of learning, for all age groups, and across all sectors and all regions.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has launched the fifth annual Apprenticeship Week, and it is set to be the biggest they with over 500 events across the country celebrating the countless achievements of learners and employers.

O2 has today announced plans to inject connectivity into British businesses, with the launch of ‘Flying Start’, the company’s largest offer created specifically for business between 1-2000 employees.

With 'National Apprenticeship Week 2012' next week, Theo Paphitis, former apprentice and retail expert, is calling on UK companies to continue to invest in apprenticeships and training despite the economic slump.

If you are looking to grow your company you need to build it in such a way that it can handle the gowth - just growing without the right foundations will inevitably lead to disaster. One of the most important areas is staff.

As businesses look to stimulate growth in an economic environment still dominated by the downturn, innovation matters like never before. Today there is no simple or single recipe for success so collaboration takes on an increasingly important focus.

Richard Close, CEO at Briggs Equipment, the UK’s leading independent service provider and materials handling equipment supplier tells us what inspires him and what advice he would give to anyone wanting to start out in business.

The UK’s largest independent membership network for women in business, everywoman, is inviting entries for the 2012 Specsavers everywoman in Retail Awards.

Controversy over the City’s rewards structure has been well documented, but few have researched whether or not pay incentives actually work. Here, the Nic Fleming tackles the bonus debate head on…

A new programme that will provide dedicated and structured coaching support for up to 10,000 high growth potential businesses a year has taken another step forward as The Coaching for Growth Consortium has signed a contract to deliver the programme, which is scheduled to be fully operational by March 2012.

Ben & Jerry’s are calling for socially responsible entrepreneurs to make themselves known for their latest competition, Join Our Core, which encourages entrants to put their business ideas forward for the chance to scoop a €10,000 cash prize, mentoring and the opportunity to see their name on tubs of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

Inflation in the UK has fallen to 4.2%. Get the full data over time - and see how it compares to pay
• Get the data

UK inflation dropped to a six-month low of 4.2% in December, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed today - down from 4.8% for November 2011.

More precisely Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure of inflation stands at 4.2% for December. When looking at this drop it is important to remember that in September this year, when the CPI stood at 5.2%, it had never been higher in recorded history.

The Retail Price Index (RPI) measure of inflation stands at 4.8% down from 5.2% in November.

There are some important differences between these two main ways the ONS use to measure inflation. The government prefers the Consumer Price Index, which also includes services, housing, electricity, food, and transportation, but the Retail Price Index covers more items. The RPI includes housing costs and is used for many pay negotiations and used to be used for pension payments. We've included both here - just click on the links on the spreadsheet. You can get the full list of items in the inflation basket here.

We have also added in pay data - and you can see how inflation is racing ahead of average earnings.

We have gathered all the data for inflation since June 1948. Let us know what you can do with this data.

Download the data

DATA: UK inflation since the 1940s - CPI and RPI
INTERACTIVE: how we visualised the data

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A group representing the UK's offshore wind industry plans to ensure more than half the supply chain is UK-sourced

British industries from boat-building to concrete, and electric cabling to gearbox manufacturing are in the line-up to benefit from the construction of thousands of offshore wind turbines, if new plans go ahead.

A group representing the UK's offshore wind industry on Monday adopted a target of ensuring that more than half of the supply chain for offshore windfarms is sourced from the UK. At present, less than a third of the value of the goods and services needed to construct offshore wind farms actually originates in the UK.

The adoption of the new target came as the UK's wind industry faced its fiercest ever assault, from a group of more than 100 Tory MPs calling on the government to cut subsidies for onshore windfarms. Their campaign, in the form of a letter to the prime minister, marked the first crisis for the incoming energy and climate change secretary, Ed Davey, after taking over from Chris Huhne on Friday. Huhne resigned when it was announced he would face criminal charges over an alleged driving offence.

"The UK has created the world's biggest offshore wind market and that should be attracting manufacturers and support companies," said Keith Anderson, chief corporate officer at Scottish Power and co-chair with the energy minister, Charles Hendry, of the Offshore Wind Developers' Forum. "This is a massive opportunity. There has been a lot of investment in offshore wind in the UK, but very little in UK suppliers."

The size of the potential market runs to many billions – the government estimates that at least £200bn in investment will be needed in the whole energy sector by 2020, to overhaul the UK's creaking grid infrastructure, bring power stations up to European standards and meet renewable energy and emissions targets.

Outlining the wider benefits of offshore wind, Anderson pointed to Belfast, where the harbour is being redeveloped as a hub for offshore windfarm construction, at a cost of about £50m. The work will create 150 jobs in construction, as well as requiring about 1m tonnes of stone from local quarries, which will create hundreds more jobs. "It is the first dedicated harbour upgrade for offshore wind," Anderson said.

Under European Union laws, the government would not be allowed to specify that a certain amount of the supplies for offshore wind should be homegrown. However, this initiative is technically one that has come from the industry itself, so it is permissible for the government to endorse it.

But critics pointed out that the target of sourcing more than half of supplies from the UK had no deadline attached, and represented "more of a vague aspiration" than a concrete plan. "It's a nod in the right direction of a strategy, but what is the strategy?" asked one person involved with the industry, who could not be named.

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Chief executive Sir David Higgins says six senior managers will forgo payouts this year and money will be used to improve safety

The head of Network Rail has become the latest taxpayer-funded executive to be forced to waive a bonus after his company announced that he and five fellow senior managers would not be seeking a payout this year.

Sir David Higgins, the chief executive of the state-backed company, was one of six Network Rail bosses who were due to discuss a possible "incentive scheme" at an annual general meeting on Friday. Higgins was expected to collect a £340,000 bonus in addition to his £560,000 basic salary.

The announcement on Monday followed immense pressure from Labour and ministers for executives in publicly owned companies to waive bonuses, following a public backlash over large payments made at a time of stringent government cuts.

Justine Greening, the transport secretary, had taken the unprecedented step of saying she would attend the meeting to oppose the plans. She also planned to tackle the company's "corporate governance" by appointing a special director from the department.

The transport secretary said the firm's decision to rethink a future remuneration scheme was "sensible and welcome".

"I have made it clear to Network Rail at every stage that this proposed package did not go far enough in reflecting the need for restraint," said Greening.

DTI insiders claim that she first told Network Rail's senior figures that they should not expect bonuses in November this year.

"The fact that its executive directors have also chosen to forfeit their annual bonuses to charity is a sign that they have recognised the strength of public opinion," she added.

Labour had accused Greening of failing to use her powers to halt the bonuses altogether. The shadow transport secretary, Maria Eagle said: "It took Labour's intervention to force ministers to take this issue seriously. Justine Greening was still refusing to stand up for the British public and veto this proposed bonus plan when Network Rail managers took the decision for her."

Eagle said the government should now sit down with Network Rail to agree whether a bonus scheme of this scale was appropriate in a company funded by the taxpayer.

"At a time when so many families and rail commuters are being squeezed financially, when fares are rising by up to 13% and the rail network is performing inadequately, it was completely wrong for bonuses of this scale to have been even considered, let alone agreed," she said.

In a statement released by Network Rail, Higgins said the decision to waive this year's bonuses was made last week and that the meeting had been suspended. Instead, future bonus schemes will be discussed at a meeting yet to be scheduled.

The company could not say, however, if Higgins and fellow executives will continue to share in a long-term bonus scheme that could be worth up to £15.6m over the next three years for the rail group's six executive directors. The six will also earn £2.3m a year in salaries plus a maximum of £4.2m in bonuses.

This year's money will instead be diverted to a safety improvement fund for level crossings, Higgins said.

"I and my directors decided last week that we would forgo any entitlement and instead allocate the money to the safety improvement fund for level crossings. I can confirm that remains our intention," he said.

The statement said that the board of Network Rail had decided to recommend to its members that Friday's meeting be adjourned. "The board will take the opportunity to reflect further on how to incentivise performance in the company against the backdrop of the current context. It will continue to consult the secretary of state on wider issues of governance in advance of the government's command paper," it reads.

Network Rail's chairman, Rick Haythornthwaite, said in the statement that Friday's meeting was not to approve a specific annual bonus payment for executive directors, but was supposed to amend a previously approved long-term incentive scheme to ensure additional external scrutiny of performance.

"The issue of annual performance payments would only arise if Network Rail surpassed stretching performance thresholds and would only be decided in May after the end of the financial year."

The development comes a week after Stephen Hester, the chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 83% state-owned, waived a bonus package of almost £1m after a public backlash.

More than 20 MPs have signed a Commons motion saying Network Rail had been "found by the Office of Rail Regulation to be in breach of its licence" and had been responsible for "major asset failures, congested routes and poor management of track condition".

Last week, the company admitted health and safety breaches over the deaths of two teenagers killed at a level crossing in Essex in 2005.

Downing Street said ministers were not permitted to interfere in the "day-to-day running" of the firm, which receives £4bn of taxpayer funding a year and is guaranteed by the government.

But it said it would be looking at its corporate governance in the light of "problems" that had arisen.

Industry sources have accused politicians of using the issue of bonuses as a political football. "It is ridiculous. We are at risk of losing some our best brains because of a political witchhunt," the source said.

Top banks had pledged to lend £190bn in 2011 with £76bn earmarked for funding small businesses

On 9 February last year, Project Merlin was finally agreed between the banks and the government. It was intended to cool the political temperature in the banking industry but instantly led to a high profile resignation – Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer who spoke for his party in the Lords on Treasury matters. At the time, Oakeshott said, with reference to the chief executive of Barclays: "If this is robust action on bank bonuses, my name's Bob Diamond."

With the 2011 bonus season now underway and the banks all preparing to report results for 2011, how does the Merlin report card stack up for Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group?

• Lending: The banks pledged to lend £190bn in 2011 – up from £179bn in 2010 – some £76bn of this was to go to small businesses. The Bank of England will publish the official verdict on Monday but Royal Bank of Scotland, bailed out by the taxpayer, admitted last Friday that it had not met all its targets. Data from the Bank of England showed that up to the end of September banks were £1bn behind.

Lending was also supposed to have an influence on bosses' bonuses – whether this has been the case might become more apparent in the coming weeks when the banks publish the annual reports which contain details of directors' pay.

• Pay and disclosure

The banks promised their 2010 bonus pools would be lower than 2009. They also promised to publish the pay of the five highest "senior executive officers". This description proved controversial. HSBC illustrates this. For 2010, under Hong Kong listing rules HSBC's five "highest paid individuals globally" received a combined £34.3m. But, under the Project Merlin disclosure the "five highest paid senior executives" took home just over £12m. The biggest earners are not necessarily executives.

The government also promised to consult to introduce similar mandatory disclosures for all large banks from 2012 onwards and for the pay of the eight highest paid "senior executive officers" to be published. This is underway, although the necessary legislation will not be passed until the summer, which means the high street banks may not need to comply until later in the year even though their annual remuneration reports are published in the next few weeks.

• Tax

The four leading banks promised to abide by the UK code of practice, a document originally drawn up by Labour but implemented by the coalition. They promised to contribute a cumulative £8bn of total tax take (covering direct and indirect sources, including the bank levy and VAT) in 2010 and £10bn in 2011. The Treasury said it had not published this data. For the financial year 2010, Barclays paid £2.8bn of UK tax, HSBC £1.2bn, while bailed out Lloyds and RBS paid £2.9bn and £4bn respectively. The numbers are not a direct comparison with the £8bn covered by the agreement, as tax can be owed in one year and paid in another and the tax year does not correspond to the financial year.

• "Societal contributions"

Banks promised to put another £1bn into the UK business growth fund, which was launched in May and has invested just £12.5m so far in three companies. The banks were also to support the Big Society Bank, contributing £200m of capital over two years. Since renamed Big Society Capital, the banks have agreed to make their contribution although the venture is yet to fund its first deal.

It may be a coincidence, but in the weeks after Project Merlin was signed, bank bosses were able to take their bonuses for the first time since the banking crisis. This year the picture is different. RBS chief executive Stephen Hester and António Horta-Osório at Lloyds have waived bonuses. On Friday, Barclays – whose former chief executive John Varley was the architect of Merlin – reports 2011 profits. It could be the next test of political sentiment towards the banking sector.

Emil Boc says he is quitting to 'release tension' after weeks of protests over austerity measures and alleged corruption

The Romanian prime minister and his cabinet have resigned after weeks of sometimes violent protests over widespread corruption and austerity measures.

Emil Boc said on Monday he was quitting "to release the tension in the country's political and social situation".

During his three-year rule, salaries of state employees were cut by a quarter and VAT increased by 5%, while the European debt crisis hit Romania's exports hard. It was a toxic combination in a country which was already the second poorest in the EU, better off only than Bulgaria, which also joined the union in 2007.

The collapse of Boc's cabinet marks the fall of yet another EU government since the euro crisis started to bite. Since 2009 governments in Slovakia, Slovenia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Ireland and the Czech Republic have imploded before scheduled elections, with economic woes playing a significant role in each demise. Voters in Hungary, Spain and Portugal also signalled their unhappiness with the fiscal policies of their governments, plumping for new leaders at the ballot box.

Within hours of Boc's announcement, the justice minister, Catalin Predoiu, was named interim prime minister by the president, Traian Basescu. A lawyer by trade, Predoiu was the obvious choice as the only minister in Boc's cabinet who is not a member of any political party. He will be in charge until the new government is formed over the coming weeks and could potentially hold on to the position until the next general election in November.

Other names circulating as potential caretaker prime ministers included the heads of Romania's foreign and domestic intelligence agencies and key figures in the central bank.

Opposition politicians celebrated Boc's departure and called for early parliamentary elections. "This is a victory for those that demonstrated on the streets," said Crin Antonescu, who heads the opposition Liberal party. The "most corrupt, incompetent and lying government" since the 1989 fall of Ceausescu has gone, he said.

Shortly before his resignation, Boc's approval ratings had dipped below 20%, with thousands of Romanians braving freezing temperatures and heavy snow to protest in towns around the country.

They are angry about low living standards and what they say is widespread corruption, in a country where the average wage is less than €350 (£290) a month and some villages and even parts of Bucharest have no running water or electricity.

Septimius Parvu, deputy director of the Pro Democracy Association, an NGO based in Bucharest, said Boc's resignation showed a "slow evolution" in Romanian politics. "The change in government shows that politicians are starting to realise they cannot govern without the people," he said. "They were taken by surprise by the protests, which, even if they were not on the scale of those in Russia, for example, took place all over the country and were the biggest seen in Romania for perhaps 20 years."

But one protester, PhD student Stefan Guga, 26, said it was wrong to characterise Boc's departure simply as a victory for the demonstrators. It also showed very pragmatic political and electoral calculations on the part of both governing and opposition parties, he said.

"Boc has been made a scapegoat," he said in a phone interview from Bucharest. "It's not that his party, the Democrat Liberals [PDL], wanted to get rid of him – but they found it very convenient to push for the prime minister's resignation and attribute much of the government's failures over the past years to his personal incompetence."

Guga, who attended many of the protests in Bucharest's University Square, said Boc's leaving was a distraction from the key demands of protesters, which, as well as a respite from painful austerity measures, was for real democracy and an end to corruption. "For the Democrat Liberals Boc's resignation can be seen as a last-minute solution to save a bit of face before the upcoming local and parliamentary elections," he said.

The reality, he said, was that the PDL will now regroup and hope that they can avoid early elections so that come November, they have a better chance of winning back the electorate. The PDL and its allies currently have a slim parliamentary majority.Guga said that if the protesters wanted to see any politician fall on his sword, it was Basescu, the president, a gruff former sea captain who despite holding a position that is theoretically ceremonial, has made many policy announcements himself.

"He is seen as the man who really pulls the strings in Romania," said Guga. "The image of Boc was just as Basescu's puppet."

Boc, who became prime minister in 2008, urged Romania's feuding politicians to be mature and rapidly vote for a new government. He defended his record, saying he had taken "difficult decisions thinking about the future of Romania, not because I wanted to, but because I had to".

Explaining his resignation in a televised speech, Boc said: "I took this decision to release the tension in the country's political and social situation, but also in order not to lose what Romanians have won.

"I know that I made difficult decisions, but the fruits have begun to appear. The most important thing is the economic stability of the country. In times of crisis, the government is not in a popularity contest, but is saving the country."

He added that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast growth of up to 2% this year lower than expected, but higher than the EU average.

Committed at some stage to adopting the euro under the terms of its accession to the EU in 2007, Romania is still struggling with the economic legacy of communist state control.

While not suffering the difficulties that the euro created for leaders in the likes of neighbouring Greece, Romania's government also struggled to finance itself without external support and found itself forced to make brutal cuts that enraged ordinary citizens.

In 2009 it was forced to sign up for a €20bn (£16.6bn) loan with the IMF, the EU and the World Bank to help pay salaries and pensions after the economy shrank by more than 7%. The aid was seen as essential to maintain investor confidence, prevent a run on the currency and keep borrowing costs at sustainable levels, even though its public debt to GDP ratio was the fourth lowest in the EU.

In 2010, the government increased sales tax from 19% to 24% and cut public workers' salaries by a quarter.

The IMF mission chief in Bucharest, Jeffrey Franks, told Reuters: "I see no reason necessarily for this to have a material effect on the aid agreement. We have every expectation the agreement will continue."

Paul Ivan, research assistant at the Centre for European Policy Studies, said the resignation was not a surprise. "There had been repeated calls for this," he said in a phone interview from Brussels. "The population had become increasingly unhappy with the austerity policies of the government."

But Ivan said Romania's economic problems were not just caused by domestic policies but external ones too. "Romania's economy is very reliant on the fortunes of the rest of the European Union. So when growth in other countries practically stopped, exports decreased and firms here started to lay off staff," he said.

Romania's textile and car industries have been particularly hard-hit, he said. French carmaker Renault has a big Romanian plant which produces the Logan under the badge of its Romanian subsidiary, Dacia.

Most of Romania's banks are also foreign-owned, said Ivan, meaning that when the debt crisis dug in, they were ever more reluctant to issue loans and mortgages.