Business for Life

The Home Office has put out a tender for a new system to help employers avoid recruiting people with inappropriate criminal backgrounds.

The tender, valued at between £250 million and £350 million over its maximum lifetime of eight years, is to provide a new system for the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and the Independent Safeguard Authority (ISA), which are merging. “CRB and ISA will be merged into one organisation to be known as the Disclosure and Barring Service at a date to be confirmed,” the tender document says.

Disclosure services allow organisations to check job applicants against criminal records, whereas a barring service actively prevents unsuitable people from working with children or vulnerable adults. The winning supplier will be required to process barring decision and disclosure applications, as well as issuing certificates such as the CRB check and other general administrative duties.

The project is also intended to implement the Protection of Freedoms Bill and the recommendations from the criminal records, vetting and barring scheme policy reviews published in February 2011. T

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The 100 new planes, which have a total list price of more than $8.5 billion, are more fuel-efficient and will help improve the company’s profitability, Delta said.

Delta said it has long-term financing for the planes and said the order will keep the company’s annual capital expenditures between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion over the next three years, as the company seeks to reduce its net debt. Because the new planes will replace older aircraft Delta is retiring from its fleet, the order will not increase the airline’s flight capacity.

Boeing said the new planes will have a new “Boeing Sky Interior” with new lighting and curving architecture. The planes are capable of flying any of Delta’s domestic routes.

The 180-seat planes will be delivered between 2013 and 2018, including 12 in 2013, followed by 19 per year from 2014 through 2017 and the last 12 in 2018.

The order is a win for Boeing to keep a key customer. Delta has had a heavy Boeing presence in its fleet, up until its acquisition of Northwest which added Airbus aircraft to its fleet.

Steve Jobs’ resignation Wednesday appears to be the result of an unspecified medical condition for which he took a leave from his post in January. Apple’s chief operating officer, Tim Cook, was quickly named CEO of the company Jobs co-founded in his garage 35 years ago.

In a letter addressed to Apple’s board and the “Apple community,” Jobs said he “always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.”

The company said Jobs gave the board his resignation Wednesday and suggested Cook be named the company’s new leader. Apple said Jobs was elected board chairman and Cook is becoming a member of its board.

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Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, will take over as CEO of the consumer electronics giant following co-founder Steve Jobs’ resignation, apparently on health grounds.

Cook is credited with revolutionising the company’s supply chain by outsourcing manufacturing to suppliers including China’s Foxconn, and slashing the amount of inventory it holds in its warehouses. Both moves have allowed the company to improve its margins.

Before joining Apple in 1998, Cook briefly worked for PC manufacturer Compaq. That company was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2002, which now wants to divest itself of its PC division.  

He had previously worked for IBM, as director of fulfilment in North America. IBM sold off its PC division to Chinese manufacturer Lenovo in 2004. (Lenovo has been suggested as a potential acquirer for HP’s PC business).

Cook steps up to the top spot at a time when the PC market is in flux, in part due to the success of Apple’s smartphone and tablet PC products. Y

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A US defense contractor that was dropped from the UK’s electronic border control project due to its poor performance is suing the government for £500 million.

The government appointed Raytheon to lead the £740 million e-borders project in 2007, but terminated its contract with Raytheon in July 2010 citing “extremely disappointing” progress.

“Elements had not arrived on time, the next critical parts were running 12 months late, with the risk of further delays, and there is no confidence in [Raytheon] to be able to address this situation,” Immigration minister Damian Green told MPs at the time.

Now, Raytheon claims the termination “was unlawful and that Raytheon is entitled to recover substantial damages for wrongful termination”.

“We have made counterclaims in the arbitration in excess of £500 million in respect of these matters,” the company’s UK CEO Robert Delorge wrote in a letter to the home affairs select committee.

Delorge wrote that the blame for projects failure lies with the government, claiming that Raytheon had only “limited visibility of any targets or policy objectives that the government may have had for the e-borders programme”.

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The target market for the bus line: college students, military personnel and others looking for an alternative to driving or flying.

The express routes start Sept. 7. Tickets went on sale Thursday with a different pricing scheme from regular bus service: The first tickets sell for $1, with a limited number available at that rate, then the fares increase later. Walk-up prices are the same as for regular Greyhound buses, at $79 one-way to Richmond, for example, Greyhound marketing director Kim Plaskett said.

The number of $1 fares available each day varies, and the company doesn’t disclose how many are available and on what days, “to prevent people from buying them all up and reselling them like a scalper,” Plaskett said.

She called the express service, with private waiting areas in the terminal and guaranteed seats on the bus, a “stress-free, relaxing way to travel.”

The new Atlanta routes are part of a broader expansion of Greyhound’s express service, which first launched late last year in the Midwest with a hub in Chicago and has since expanded to the Northeast.

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More banks have failed in Georgia since August 2008 — 68 — than in any other state. The first of that bunch— Alpharetta-based Integrity Bank — was closed three years ago Monday.

After most of Georgia’s failures, regulators, employees and the failed bank’s buyer worked to quickly reopen the institution under a new name, insured deposits intact.

For the people involved the process of closing a bank is a grim ritual: exacting, efficient and often emotional.

In Sunday’s newspaper, the AJC takes you inside the process with bank employees and regulators who have been through the process. It’s a story you’ll get only by picking up a copy of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution or logging on to the paper’s iPad app. Subscribe today.