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BAD HYGIENE HABITS IN WORKPLACE SPREAD INFECTION
POOR toilet hygiene in the region's workplaces plays a major role in the spread of staff illness, leading hygiene specialists say.
Initial's managing director, Peter Webster says more than 30 per cent of infectious diseases could be eliminated by proper hand-washing. Despite this, up to half of all men and a quarter of women fail to wash their hands after they have been to the toilet.
According to the CBI, general illnesses such as colds, 'flu and stomach upsets are seen by employers as the major cause of absence and short-term minor illnesses causes most spells of absence. The main effects of this absence are poorer quality of service and lower customer satisfaction.
The survey also revealed that the majority of companies that had examined the link between health and productivity believed
there is a strong relationship between the two.
Raids Net £1m Fake Goods
HUGE amounts of counterfeit goods - with a street value of about £1m - have been seized in Liverpool in the last week after a crackdown by police to hinder illegal traders in the run up to the Christmas period.
Trading Standards Officers and Police Officers seized fake goods from stalls at local markets at the weekend and followed up with a raid on a warehouse in Garston where thousands of counterfeit articles of clothing were discovered which included familiar brand names varying from Armani, Calvin Klein, and Prada.
The raids underline Liverpool City Council's determination to stem the flood of counterfeits into the City. Councillor Richard Oglethorpe, Executive Member for the
Environment said:- "We are committed to removing the blight of shoddy counterfeits from our city.
We will ensure that the public are protected from these illegal activities and that honest traders do not face unfair competition. The successful raids over this weekend are helping to make Liverpool a 'Fake Free Zone'."
Trading Standards Officers were accompanied by Police from St Anne Street and representatives of the film, clothing, computer and music industries were also on hand to provide expert assistance after three men were arrested in connection with the fake goods.
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- MIND THE GAP
BUSINESSES in Sefton are being offered a free audit of their training needs as part of a new £12.5 million scheme launched in Merseyside.
SkillWorks, a new programme which offers every small and medium enterprise in the region access to a full training needs analysis to identify any skills gaps. The program pays a whopping 80 percent of the cost of any training identified while the company pays just 20 percent.
It follows an independent review of workforce development in Greater Merseyside and sits alongside the Government's skills strategy White Paper - '21st Century:- Realising our Potential.
And the project is open to any business with fewer than 250 employees in the Merseyside area and is completely demand led. In Sefton more than 10,500 businesses could access the free audit and funding.
SkillWorks has been developed by the Learning and Skills Council for Greater Merseyside with backing from the European Social Fund. Local Boy Wins National Arts Competition A PUPIL from Formby High School has beaten more than 350 children to win a nationwide arts competition organised by the Swiss Embassy to mark the UN's International Year of Freshwater 2003.
Paul Challinor's poem on the theme Water Source of Life was chosen a winner of the art and poetry competition for pupils aged 11-16 and was accompanied this week by his mother and his teacher, Maria Ogilby, and the four other winners on an once-in-a-lifetime trip to Switzerland.
Paul, who is 14-years-old, said:- "I was ecstatic when I heard that I'd won because I'd never expected to and I really wanted to go to Switzerland. My mum is just as excited as me about going and the rest of the family are proud because so many entered the competition".
The competition formed part of a pack of teaching materials, called Exploring Fresh Water, written by both Swiss and British teachers. This was directly mapped to the national curriculum to aid the teaching of geography to this age group. The pack has already been used to teach at least 300,000 children in the UK about fresh water.
Bruno Spinner, the Swiss Ambassador said:- "The entries in the competition were of the highest quality. They showed just how inspired the British pupils were by the themes of the Exploring Fresh Water pack. The Embassy will be continuing its commitment to education in the UK with the publication of Exploring Democracy next
spring." 
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