The annual Absence Management survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development estimates that up to 14 million working days are lost each year due to alcohol related problems, costing the UK an estimated 2 billion pounds each year. Almost a third of organisations have dismissed employees in the last two years due to alcohol problems.
The survey found four out of ten employers believe alcohol misuse is a significant cause of employee absence and lost productivity. 

The Government is giving extra money to local authorities as part of a plan to reduce community tensions and to promote cohesion. Fifty million pounds over the next three years will be available to authorities to use to tackle their own specific challenges.
The funding is included in a ten-point action plan produced in response to the 10-month review by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, which identified the challenges involved in responding to changes in local communities. 

Research to be published today will show that that there is a glass ceiling in voluntary sector governance and that women and people of ethnic minority backgrounds find it hard to become trustees of larger charities and voluntary organisations. The Boards Count benchmarking survey will be launched at the NCVO On Board governance conference today.
It will reveal that in smaller organisations women account for 45 per cent of places on boards but in larger bodies that figure falls to 29 per cent.