大象传媒

Consumer news and issues with Julian Worricker.

How are councils going save money? The London Borough of Barnet are studying the budget airline business model to see if it can be applied to the way they work. Julian is joined by cllr Mike Freer, leader of the London Borough of Barnet, cllr Bernand Priest, executive member for Finance and Human Resources of Manchester City Council and by Peter Wilkingson from the Audit Commission.

Famous for being Lord Alan Sugar's 'eyes and ears' for five series of The Apprentice, former corporate lawyer Margaret Mountford is now campaigning to increase the numbers of people who leave money to charities in their wills. We ask her about the art of recruitment and her return to learning as she's now studying for a doctorate in papyrology. The web address is www.rememberacharity.org.uk.

In 2004, we visited a sheltered housing complex in Bradford to follow the attempts of the housing association which ran it to discover how many of its tenants were missing out on benefits to which they were entitled. So have things changed over the past five years? Peter White reports.

By law, developers have to carry out archaeological assessments before they can get planning permission. We discuss how the economic downturn which has had such a major impact on the construction industry has led to contracts for commercial archaeologists drying up too. With Kenneth Aitchison, head of Planning and Professional Development at the Institute for Archaeologists.

And Julian is joined by Nigel Pooley, a cheese grader from Somerset who has had his nose insured for five million pounds. He works for one of the largest independent cheese producers in the UK and is responsible for the selection of 12,000 tonnes of cheddar each year.