Top two bosses at City & Guilds placed on leave after bonus scandal
The two most senior executives at City & Guilds have been put on leave shortly after a scandal over millions of pounds of bonuses triggered a Charity Commission investigation into the vocational training body,The chief executive, Kirstie Donnelly, and the chief financial officer, Abid Ismail, will be “absent from work for a short period”, as its new owner, PeopleCert, commissioned an internal investigation into events before and after its acquisition of City & Guilds’ training and qualifications business,Last week, the charity watchdog launched a statutory inquiry into last year’s sale of the qualification awards business to PeopleCert, an international certification company,The investigation will examine a range of problems, including “concerns raised in public reporting relating to the sale and bonuses awarded to its executives”,The inquiry was announced after the Guardian revealed last month that City & Guilds executives received million-pound bonuses after the charity privatised its business arm.
The payments – understood to include a £1.7m award for Donnelly and £1.2m for Ismail – emerged after reports that the privatised City & Guilds business had also embarked on a £22m cost-cutting drive and was shrinking its UK workforce after being sold by its charity owner to PeopleCert.Both executives had stayed with the business once it was sold by the charity to PeopleCert.A spokesperson for PeopleCert said: “An internal investigation, led by our legal representatives and non-executive board members, has been commissioned in order to fully understand events before and after the sale by City & Guilds of London Institute (Charitable Foundation) of its awarding, assessment and training business (City & Guilds Limited), including the individual conduct of executives.
“In the meantime, Kirstie Donnelly and Abid Ismail, CEO and CFO of City & Guilds Limited respectively, will be absent from work.Their responsibilities have been assumed by other senior leaders to ensure we continue to deliver the best possible experience for partners, customers and learners.”Donnelly and Ismail have been approached for comment.The company has previously said that the bonuses were not agreed or paid by the charity, and that remuneration was a matter for the newly privately owned business.Founded in 1878 by the City of London and 16 livery companies, the original institute developed a national system of technical education, offering qualifications and apprenticeships in fields ranging from manufacturing and mechanical engineering to hairdressing and horticulture.
It was awarded a royal charter by Queen Victoria in 1900 and says it helps about 1.1 million people a year.The organisation has enjoyed a storied history, with alumni include the chefs Jamie Oliver, Marcus Wareing and Gordon Ramsay, the former England football manager Gareth Southgate, the celebrity gardener Alan Titchmarsh and fashion designer Karen Millen.The training and awards business was previously owned by the City & Guilds of London Institute (CGLI), the charity that announced in the autumn that it was selling the operation to PeopleCert.The charity, which provides grants to people in need of vocational training, said the sale gave it a cash windfall of between £180m and £200m.
It said the proceeds would secure its long-term future, enable it to pursue its charitable objectives and provide increased investment and opportunities for the training business, now in private ownership.The Charity Commission is investigating events at the charity, not the private company.The trustees of the charity, CGLI, have said: “We acknowledge the Charity Commission’s statutory inquiry and are cooperating fully with their investigation.We remain confident that all actions taken by the trustees have been proper, transparent, and in line with our charitable purpose.“We are committed to maintaining public trust and will continue to act in the best interests of the charity and its beneficiaries.
”PeopleCert added it would “cooperate fully with the Charity Commission’s inquiry as required” and that the plans to reduce its UK workforce would be achieved via “attrition”, rather than compulsory redundancies.
Sacked TikTok workers in UK launch legal action over ‘union busting’
TikTok moderators have accused the social media company of “oppressive and intimidating” union busting after it fired hundreds of workers in the UK, beginning the process just before they were due to vote on forming a union.The moderators wanted to establish a collective bargaining unit to protect themselves from the personal costs of checking extreme and violent content, and have claimed TikTok is guilty of unfair dismissal and breaching trade union laws.About 400 moderators in London were fired before Christmas in a process initiated a week before the vote was due to take place.TikTok, which has about 30m monthly users in Britain, strongly denies a legal claim that has been lodged with an employment tribunal on behalf of three former workers, describing it as “baseless”.It said the sackings were part of a global restructuring involving roles in the UK, and south and south-east Asia amid the increasing use of AI to automate the removal of posts that violate content rules, with 91% of transgressive content now removed automatically
TikTok to strengthen age-verification technology across EU
TikTok will begin to roll out new age-verification technology across the EU in the coming weeks, as calls grow for an Australia-style social media ban for under-16s in countries including the UK.ByteDance-owned TikTok, and other major platforms popular with young people such as YouTube, are coming under increasing pressure to better identify and remove accounts belonging to children.The system, which has been quietly piloted in the EU over the past year, analyses profile information, posted videos and behavioural signals to predict whether an account may be belong to a user under the age of 13.As well as analysing information the account holder provides about themselves, the technology looks at behaviour such as the videos a user publishes, and “other on-platform behaviour”.TikTok said accounts flagged by the system would be reviewed by specialist moderators rather than face an automatic ban, and may then be removed
X still allowing users to post sexualised images generated by Grok AI tool
X has continued to allow users to post highly sexualised videos of women in bikinis generated by its AI tool Grok, despite the company’s claim to have cracked down on misuse.The Guardian was able to create short videos of people stripping to bikinis from photographs of fully clothed, real women. It was also possible to post this adult content on to X’s public platform without any sign of it being moderated, meaning the clip could be viewed within seconds by anyone with an account.It appeared to offer a straightforward workaround to restrictions announced by Elon Musk’s social network this week. These had been welcomed by the prime minister, Keir Starmer, who had described the photographs generated by Grok as “disgusting” and “shameful”
AI will transform the ‘human job’ and enhance skills, says science minister
Advances in AI and robotics will transform human jobs, starting with roles in warehouses and factories, the UK science minister has said, as the government announced plans to reduce red tape for robot and defence tech companies.Patrick Vallance said technological progress was creating a “whole new area” for robots to work in. “What’s really changing now is the combination of AI and robotics. It is opening up a whole new area, particularly in the sorts of things like humanoid robotics. And that will increase productivity, it will change the human job,” he told the Guardian
Elon Musk’s xAI datacenter generating extra electricity illegally, regulator rules
A US regulator ruled on Thursday that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company had acted illegally by using dozens of methane gas turbines to power huge datacenters in Tennessee.xAI has been fighting for a year and a half over truck-sized gas turbines the company had parked near its Colossus 1 and 2 facilities, arguing to local authorities that the electricity-generating turbines were exempt from requirements for air quality permits.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared on Thursday that the generators were not exempt. In its ruling, the agency revised the policies around gas turbines, saying that operating the machines still requires air permits even if they are used on a portable or temporary basis, as had been the case.When xAI first installed the portable turbines at Colossus 1, it took advantage of a local county loophole allowing the operation of generators without permits so long as the machines did not sit in one place for more than 364 days
Mother of one of Elon Musk’s sons sues over Grok-generated explicit images
The mother of one of Elon Musk’s children is suing his company – alleging explicit images were generated of her by his Grok AI tool, including one in which she was underage.Ashley St Clair has filed a lawsuit with the supreme court of the state of New York against xAI, alleging that Grok, which is used on the social media platform X, promised to stop generating explicit images but continued to do so.She is seeking punitive and compensatory damages, claiming dozens of sexually explicit and degrading deepfake images were created by Grok.After two weeks of public outcry at the tool being used to create sexualised images of women and children, the company said on Wednesday it would “geoblock” the ability of users “to generate images of real people in bikinis, underwear, and similar attire via the Grok account and in Grok in X” in countries where it was illegal.St Clair, 27, who is estranged from Musk, is a rightwing influencer, author and political commentator
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