The Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) has announced that seven insurance and financial planning firms have achieved Chartered status over September and October.

Firms that gained Chartered status are: Augustine Limited; Avoca Wealth Management Ltd; Better Financial Planning; Park Insurance Ltd; Sedulo Wealth Management; SGM Financial Management Ltd; and Suttons Independent Financial Advisors Ltd.

Chartered status is a symbol of technical competence and signifies a public commitment to professional standards.

President of the CII, Ian Callaghan, said: “We are delighted to welcome these seven firms into our Chartered community.

“In achieving corporate Chartered status, they have each made a public declaration to professional standards, and are committed to upholding the Chartered Ethos of nurturing knowledge, client centricity and serving society.

“Corporate Chartered status is a key component in building public trust and a true mark of professionalism.

We look forward to working alongside these firms to deliver good customer outcomes and best practice.”

BATCH cooking saves time and cash, plus can help you enjoy tastier and nutritious meals.

You can also make grub go further by adding cheaper foods to balance out pricier ingredients such as meat.

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Here’s how to affordably bulk out your meals so you have more to save and freeze for another day.

OATS: Typically seen as a breakfast meal, but a handful or two can be used to thicken almost any sauce and add substance.

Use fine- milled varieties or blitz in a processor to help them blend in. Packs can be found for less than £1.

PULSES: Packed with protein and nutrients, beans and pulses are an excellent way of adding variety to dinners without breaking the bank.

Kidney beans are often found in chilli con carne but you could add a tin of black beans too (49p at Tesco).

Lentils work well with a cottage pie mix and chickpeas are excellent added to curries.

FRIDGE RAID: Many people follow recipes word for word, but often you can adapt to use up ingredients you already have.

Check your fridge for vegetables that can be added.

Tomatoes, broccoli, peppers and the like are incredibly versatile and work in many sauce-based dinners, helping to cut down on waste and increase the volume of your meal.

FROZEN VEG: Stretch out meals and add nutrients by adding a couple of handfuls of frozen veg such as peas, sweetcorn or broad beans.

Keeping these in the freezer ensures they won’t go bad before you use them and can be used in many dishes.

RICE: Add a couple of handfuls of rice to soup, casseroles and stew for a heartier and fuller meal with extra texture and minimal costs.

POTATOES: Chopped spuds are perfect for adding to curries and stews.

You can par-boil or just make sure you cook sauces long enough to get your potato nice and fluffy.

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Two individuals have been convicted for their roles in a £1.5m investment fraud.

Raymondip Bedi, 35, and Patrick Mavanga, 40, pleaded guilty to fraud, money laundering and carrying out regulated activity without authorisation.

Mavanga also pleaded guilty to possession of false identification documents and perverting the course of justice.

The duo was part of a group that defrauded at least 65 investors out of £1,541,799.

Between February 2017 and June 2019, the group cold-called consumers, directing them to a professional-looking website where they were offered high returns for fake investments in crypto.

The jury at Southwark Crown Court were unable to reach a verdict on a third defendant, and they will face a retrial in September 2025.

A fourth defendant, Rowena Bedi, was acquitted of money laundering. A further individual, Minas Filippidis, is wanted in relation to the same offences.

Bedi and Mavanga will be sentenced at a later date.

The criminal proceeding was brought by the Financial Conduct Authority after the defendants were arrested last April.

The Financial Conduct Authority’s joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, Steve Smart, said: “Bedi and Mavanga lured investors with promises of high returns on crypto investments, but their schemes were nothing but a callous scam.

“If you’re contacted out of the blue about an investment opportunity that sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. If you’re in any doubt – don’t invest.”

A HOST of beers, ciders and wines have been quietly weakened – leaving shoppers demanding a return to their original strength.

Analysis by the Sun has uncovered a raft of booze sold in supermarkets which now have lower alcohol contents – most likely in response to hikes in booze duty by the Government. 

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In many cases the weakened drinks have also risen in price – a phenomenon known as “drinkflation”. 

Bottles of Banks’s Amber Ale were changed from 3.8% to 3.4% in the middle of last year, while the price went up from 89p to £1 in Tesco.

One reviewer wrote on the Tesco website: “Been buying it for years but will stop now. I would also rather pay more for quality.

“There should be a petition to change it back to its original taste and abv.”

A spokesman for the Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company Group, which makes Banks’ Ale, said its reduced ABV “supports moderation”, and argued the product still has “great taste and quality”.

Meanwhile Compton Orchard Medium Dry Cider is now 4%, down from 5% last year.

Its manufacturers said the Government’s duty hikes had impacted the firm, but it added that customers also wanted lighter options now so it supplies a range of products with different strengths.

Wines have been impacted – with Sun Online previously revealing how mainstream brands including Blossom Hill and Hardys have lowered their ABVs following tax hikes.

Today we can expose further reductions. Taparoo Valley Australian Shiraz, sold by Tesco, was 14% in July 2022, at a cost of £3.99 for a 75cl bottle, but it has since fallen to 11%, with the same volume costing £4.15.

One reviewer wrote: “This wine has steadily been reduced in alcohol % which has destroyed any value for money that it had . Thin and lacking in any varietal characteristics but what can you expect for the price?”

Caparelli Italian Rose Blush 75Cl, also sold only in Tesco, has fallen from 12% to 11%, but increased from £4.29 to £5.50 in two years.

Meanwhile Tesco Green Ginger Wine has been reduced from 15% in 2022, when it was sold as fortified wine, to its current level of 11.5%. The price has also increased from £3.75 to £4.50.

Tesco said of the changes: “We work with our suppliers to ensure that our own-brand wines offer great taste and value for our customers.”

The UK Government’s alcohol duty reforms introduced in August last year resulted in the biggest increases in booze duty in almost 50 years.

The duty paid on a bottle of still wine was pushed up by 20%, or 44p, based on an average alcohol strength of 12.5% ABV.

Wines that are 11% currently have a £2.35 duty imposed on each bottle, whereas any between 11.5% and 14.5% command a flat tax rate of £2.67. 

For that reason many bottles were pushed down to 11%.

From February, duty rates will change again with a new system of taxation introduced to penalise higher strength drinks, and Labour has pushed through the change in last week’s Budget.

Under the new regime, the single amount of duty paid on wines between 11.5 and 14.5% ABV – £2.67 – will be replaced with increasingly higher payable amounts according to the strength of the wine.

That means a 75cl bottle of wine at 14.5% ABV will see wine duty increase from £2.67 per bottle to £3.21, based on a predicted RPI inflation rate of 3.65%.

But for an 11% bottle the duty payable will be much less at £2.43, an enormous difference of 78p. 

The resulting array of weakened plonks have been dubbed “Rishi wines”, after the former Prime Minister who championed the reforms.

UN-BEER-LIEVABLE

Booze producers are also being incentivised to produce lower strength beers, with 3.4% bevvies falling into a lower tax bracket than 3.5% ones.

As a result Carlsberg Danish Pilsner, Grolsch Premium Pilsner and – as revealed today – Banks’ Amber Ale have been reduced to 3.4%. 

Currently beer with a strength between 1.3% and 3.4% have a duty of £9.27 for each litre of pure alcohol, whereas beer with an alcohol strength of 3.5% to 8.4% carries a duty of £21.01 for each pure litre of alcohol.

The duty payable on each of these brackets are set to rise by inflation (around 3.65%) in February.

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