These services are known as e-tutoring and in the past few years they’ve spread rapidly across Britain. It is estimated that in the last few years the industry has grown from almost nothing to being worth nearly £8 billion.

Before the online boost in tutoring it was estimated that around 25 percent of families at some point hired a tutor for their children. This year is the first time that various online providers are going to start being reviewed by The Good Schools Guide.

Those children who are signed up to the service watch broadcasts which are presented through video conferencing facilities such as Skype. This technology means the children can see the teacher and interact with them through video and speech. The student and teacher also share a virtual whiteboard which makes tutoring much easier.

The cost of tutoring is much lower which is one of the big attractions to the service with companies charging between £15 and £30 per hour. This is much cheaper than private tutors in the UK who come to your house in person.

E-tutoring is already well-established in the United States and there are many major players in the market. Pearson have a large number of tutors in India who teach children in America as well as Britain. The publisher do this through a subsidiary company called TutorVista.

The number of tutoring companies in the UK is increasing rapidly and they are of great appeal to many children who are spending increasingly large amounts of time on the internet. The fact that children are very used to the internet means that they are comfortable with this sort of digital technology and video tutoring is something they easily get used to.

Even some schools are starting to take advantage of virtual tutoring and there is a school in London which runs an after-school homework club where students benefit from extra tuition from India.

An adviser for The Good Schools Guide is Sue Fieldman and she has commented, “There is no question that online tutoring is growing rapidly. Generally, parents prefer for a tutor to come to the house but young people are so involved with technology that sometimes the only way to get them to accept private tutoring is through the internet. What is clear is that teenagers do prefer to be tutored online rather than in person.”

Ms Fieldman also went on to highlight that there are risks involved, “This is an unregulated industry and there are definitely some low quality sites out there with tutors who are unqualified and not good teachers. Anyone can describe themselves as a tutor and all they need is some computer programmes which are free and easy to download. There is no question that this industry is going to continue to grow but it is important that you only pursue tutoring with a reputable site.”

An investigation by Which?, the independent advisors, found that the six biggest suppliers of UK energy received four million complaints last year. This is clearly too many, and Ofgem has been forced to act. They launched their own investigation and found that British Gas and npower have been two of the worst.

The fine for British Gas represents just 0.02% of company turnover, and must be paid before the 22^nd February this year. The companies have had their chance to appeal, and were unsuccessful.

The Which? campaign for ‘Affordable Energy’ is pushing for Ofgem to be given more power, so that it can look closely at complaints by demanding the information directly from energy companies. If this data can then be made public, it will help consumers to compare suppliers directly, not just on charges but also on complaints; both the volume of complaints and how they are handled.

The energy company, EDF, has recently announced it is going to be lowering the price of its gas by around five percent. Last year, many people from the UK complained about the cost of the company’s gas and it is expected that this reduction is going to alleviate some of the high costs they were experiencing.

The price of gas fell significantly in the last few months because the weather was much warmer than expected. This has led the company to announce that they will be making the price reduction on 7 February, and it is expected to affect nearly 1.5 million of the company’s customers located all across the UK.

This is the first energy company to lower its prices since the massive percentage increase that took place in November which meant customers were being charged an average of over 15 percent more. It is expected that other energy companies are soon going to be lowering their prices as well.

For many consumers, the announcement of lower energy costs couldn’t come at a better time. Consumers in the UK are feeling more financially squeezed than ever before and the expensive bills that energy companies were charging made the situation even worse. The consumer company Which? released a report last year which showed that the larger six energy companies in the UK received over 4 million complaints in the last year.

Most of these complaints were about bill mistakes and meter readings being inaccurate. These are the sorts of things that mean customers are being significantly overcharged and often direct debits are set up so the money comes straight out of their bank account.

Richard Lloyd is the Chief Executive of Which? and he commented that the watchdog in the industry should be increasing the amount of effort put into making sure that customers are satisfied with their energy companies.

He commented, “The energy regulator, Ofgem, should make sure that they publish information about how many complaints are being reported to them. Energy companies must be accountable for putting right the problems that their consumers seem to be regularly having.”

On the 7th May 2008, the Health and Safety Executive issued the company with a Prohibition Notice to stop work at the site, which was deemed to be unsafe. The company proceeded to erect scaffolding as instructed but, during an inspection on the 28th July 2009, safety officials noticed further problems involving site access and rubble, prompting them to issue a second notice due to risks of an accident at work.

During a follow-up inspection on the 13th August 2009, officials found scaffolding to be dangerously unsafe, with gaps in the platforms and missing toe boards and guardrails. At this point, the injury lawyers Health and Safety Executive sought to prosecute the firm in addition to serving a third Prohibition Notice to cease work.

At Manchester Crown Court last week, Prestige Homes Construction Limited was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £4,792 in costs. The company pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005, which states: “Where work is carried out at height, every employer shall take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury.”

The firm was also charged with breaching Regulation 27(1) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007, which provides that: “Every part of a construction site shall, so far as is reasonably practicable, be kept in good order and every part of a construction site which is used as a place of work shall be kept in a reasonable state of cleanliness.”

When employers fail to take seriously their health and safety obligations, accidents can very easily result in death or serious injury – especially on construction sites. Personal injury claims can be brought against employers whose negligence gives rise to accidents in the workplace that cause injury.

Speaking after the court hearing, Health and Safety Executive inspector, Ian Betley, said: “The lives of several construction workers were put at risk because Prestige Homes failed to make sure the site remained safe. We gave the company two chances to improve standards but, in the end, we had no choice but to prosecute.

“Falls from height remain the biggest cause of workplace deaths and one of the main causes of injury. We found missing guardrails on two separate occasions that meant it would have been dangerous to work on the site.”

The Westminster spokesperson for the SNP is Mike Weir who has stated that the people who have died since the collapse never received any compensation for the Christmas hamper that they failed to receive. The liquidation firm responsible is BDO Stoy Hayward and a letter from the company stated, “We can confirm that those who have died since the company went into administration will have the money that they lost given to the next of kin or to their estate.”

When the company went into administration back in 2006 over 120,000 customers made claims against them for an average amount of around £400. Mr Weir stated that over 20,000 of the customers were left without their Christmas hamper from Scotland.

Many of the families who had ordered the Christmas hampers generally have a low income and had been paying a monthly sum in order to receive the Christmas hamper at the end of the year. Nearly 6000 customers in 2009 were given compensation. Many people had placed orders before a cut-off date set by the court and were unaffected by the ruling and are set to receive only around five pence for every pound spent on the Christmas hamper scheme.

Mr Weir continued, “It is a completely unacceptable that the company collapsed over five years ago and that many people have died without receiving any sort of compensation. There is something wrong with the system if liquidations can take this long to go through, it seems rather daft to me that people are actually dying before they receive compensation. Many people are still feeling the pain of that Christmas.

“These people put faith in this company and they used it as a way to save for a happy time of year. The fact that they are going to recover so little is just a continuation of the nightmare. Especially when you consider that the legal advisors dealing with the administration have already netted £8 million.

“Insolvency regulation in the UK has failed in this case and as with many other industries it seems that the problem is once again the issue of regulation. Regulation is organised by professional bodies but they have no independence from the very firms they are regulating. There is no ombudsmen or complaints investigation procedure and unacceptable delays and fees can simply not be questioned.

“Ministers in the UK need to change this procedure without any delay and bring the insolvency procedures of Farepak to a quick and decisive end to ensure that people receive a sensible amount of what they lost.”

These prosecutions came about as a result of the Accident Exchanges unique Asset Protection Unit, or APU. They are doing a vital job in thwarting the bogus claims that are causing motor insurance premiums to continue to rise. The convictions added up to more than 80 years in jail for those prosecuted successfully, and represents APU’s most prolific time since they were introduced in 2007.

The specialist APU team of former police officers and forensic data and behavioural analysts, use an in-house developed, multi-layered software platform to highlight suspect claims and possible fraudulent activity. Across 2011, it prevented insurers having to pay-out in excess of £5m on bogus motor claims; the largest, a staggering £103,000 in damages and costs, was recorded in December.

According to the Insurance Fraud Bureau, undetected general insurance claims fraud is now nearing £2bn annually – £350m of which is motor related – adding an average of £44 to motor premiums.

APU remains unique to the industry, helping insurers, solicitors and the authorities thwart complex “crash for cash” gangs and motor fraud in general. It also has an enviable track record assisting Police Forces across the country to successfully prosecute career criminals. One notable case in November last year saw a much-sought after individual with 120 previous convictions imprisoned for 4 years as a result of evidence secured by the team.

Steve Evans, Chief Executive of Accident Exchange, said: “APU’s approach, a blend of technology and highly skilled former Police officers, is unique to the industry.

“Its success rate is incredible, denting the criminal practices of organised gangs and individuals to the betterment of all of the law-abiding motorists who pay insurance premiums in good faith.”

The recent spate of APU successes follows on the heels of a two-year unilateral investigation by Accident Exchange into the data produced by motor consultancy, Autofocus, and used by insurers and their legal representatives in the Courts.

In December, Lord Justice Aikens said that there was sufficient evidence to suggest ‘systematic fraud’ and ‘systemic slipshod’ work had prevented the innocent motorist receiving a fair trial.

As a result, Accident Exchange currently re-opening nearly 5,000 cases where solicitors acting for insurers had used information provided by Autofocus to defend ‘base hire’ rates (BHR).

The FOS have described the amount of complaints they are getting is unprecedented and they expect the number of complaints they are going to be receiving only to increase in the future. Recent figures from the service have said that they have dealt with over 300,000 complaints about the mis-selling of PPI.

A recent statement from the service read, “We are expecting substantial volumes of complaints with regard to PPI for the next two years. The size of the market of PPI is enormous and the amount of detriment to consumers is significant. The number of cases being decided in the favour of the consumer with regard to PPI is very high with nearly 70 percent of all cases going in their favour.

This is lower than the previous quarter which was deciding over 90 percent of cases in the favour of the consumer, but before that the percentage was significantly lower. The cost of the service handling PPI cases is usually much higher than with other cases they handle. Therefore they are proposing that an extra fee of £350 be added to each case. This fee is only going to be added however for businesses who pursue more than 25 cases a year.

Credit card complaints are also often brought to the service but they are significantly lower than the number of PPI cases. Currently the number of credit card cases makes up seven percent of all complaints that the FOS deal with. Complaints about mortgages are around five percent and current-account complaints are around six percent.

There are many other financial products that are complained about and together these make up around 17 percent of all the complaints that the FOS handle. In the final quarter of 2011 the number of mortgage complaints actually decreased and so did the number that were being decided in favour of the customer.

In the last quarter of last year over 2,300 complaints about mortgages were received and this is fewer than the number that were received in the summer. In the last three months of the year less than a quarter of all mortgage complaint cases were decided in the consumer’s favour. This is significantly higher than the figures that were seen earlier in the year when one third of mortgage complaints were being decided in favour of the consumer.

The good news for customers is that providers, who are all competing for a piece of the action, usually launch a whole host of new and appealing credit card offers, the recently relaunched Barclaycard that offers customers an interest free period of 2 years for transferring their balances, being a prime example.

Before you get all excited however and try to jump onto the bandwagon of balance transfers, it is worth bearing in mind that only 50% of credit card applications are actually successful, this is according to the latest research by the UK Cards Association. This figure has been based on the research that took place between January-October 2009, and are unlikely to have changed since then.

A change in the law also means that, as of 2010, lender have only to offer their advertised rates to 51% of the successful applicants, down from the previous required figure of 66%. This effectively mean that providers can offer nearly half of the new customers a worse deal, such as a shorter period of 0%, lower credit limits and higher interest rates, than the one they originally applied for.

James Jones from Experian, the credit reference agency, said that all this depends very much on the lender and if you go with a lender looking to recruit new customers and expand their books you may have a better chance of getting the deal you applied for. He also stressed, however, that lenders are generally erring on the side of caution and they are not told the current success rate of applications.

He added that they know from the amount of customers who approach Experian to review their credit history that there is still a very significant amount of people who are struggling to get credit. Only those with a pristine credit history stand a chance of getting the best deals out there,  and Jones said to review your credit history before you apply for a new credit card and be realistic and avoid wasted applications for credit.

He also pointed out that the worst thing you can do is to make multiple applications within a short space of time, due to the fact that while your credit report doesn’t show declined applications it does show that you have applied. Making lots of applications in a short space of time also smacks of desperation and that’s the last thing you want to display, so do your homework before applying for anything.

The 3 main credit reference agencies; Equifax, Callcredit and Experian allow you to access your credit reports online for a charge as little as £2, and you should look for things such as repeated late payments as these adversely affect your credit rating.

The FOS, Financial Ombudsmen Service, which rules on customers complaints about the controversial insurance that the banks have rejected, have seen the number of cases that it has had to become involved in climb to above 3000 a week in the last 2 months. It has upheld 9 out of 10 PPI cases in the customers favour, with the compensation average £2750. The payments have ranged from £200 to over £10,000.

Natalie Ceeney is the chief financial ombudsman has said in the latest newsletter from the organisation that the number of complaints have risen so much that the FOS have been forced to take on extra staff, and they have found the numbers pretty unsettling. A total of 532,000 people have made complaints about PPI during the first half of the current financial year.

PPI is an insurance that was designed to provide the consumer with cover in the cases of such things as redundancy or illness and was sold in tandem with financial products. The problem was that this was often done without the customers knowledge, and very rarely paid out.

The main banks on the high street were ordered in May by the Financial Services Authority to speed up the payments after a court challenge that was stalling the compensation payments was abandoned. The banks had dealt with the majority of the claim backlog of 200,00 by the end of August, the FSA’s deadline, and payed out over £230m in compensation during that month alone.

The rules of the FSA stipulate that complaints had to be dealt with within 8 weeks, but that doesn’t include compensation payments. One customer received a letter from Lloyds TSB back in August saying that he would be receiving £13,000, but as yet this money hasn’t materialised.

A spokesman for Ofgem stated that the companies are required to publish the figures every year and that the regulator takes compliance in this matter seriously, and will be working hard to find out why companies have not released their figures yet.

Leading electricity and gas supplier EDF saw complaints against their services increase by almost 40% over the course of last year and British Gas also saw their complaints increase by about 33%.  npower saw a slight increase in complaints of about 10% and SSE also experienced a small increase of 14%.  Part of the reason for the increase may be poor customer service, which has resulted in British Gas and npower both receiving fines from Ofgem this year.

The regulator also conducted an investigation into npower and found that it did not properly record complaints issued by customers and did not offer satisfactory details to customers about how they could seek out the help of an Ombudsman if they were not happy with the way that their complaints were handled. As a result of the investigation the company received a £2m fine.

British Gas also received a £2.5 fine last year for not meeting the minimum standards when it came to handling their complaints from domestic and small business customers.  This is the second year in a row that Scottish Power has not met the deadline to release their complaint figures which may be a bad sign for the company as when they finally did last year it was discovered they had the highest level of complaints out of the ‘Big Six’ power providers.

EDF attributed their increase in complaints to a new computer system that required the staff to be retrained and caused problems for a reasonable amount of time.

Energy watchdog Consumer Focus stated that some of the complaints data from the firms should not be trusted because customers are not aware enough about how complaints should be handled.  The figures that are published are not standardised or checked and therefore there is not a clear way to judge how much they actually represent the overall type of energy complaints that a company receives.