• Yorkshire-based education recruiter Academic Appointments has secured an undisclosed sum in backing from Leeds-based investment fund Solingen.

The deal was brokered through KBS Corporate with legal support provided by Gateley and Gordons Solicitors. The firm’s long-term banking partner Yorkshire Bank received legal advice from Eversheds, while Solingen received advice from Ryecroft Glenton, RPL and Stratton HR.

• The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE) has agreed a partnership with merchant banking group Close Brothers, enabling its members to access a range of financial education and advice services.

The services will cover budgeting, debt and saving strategies, tax planning – hints and tips, improving financial wellbeing, lifetime savings and pension planning, managing annual and lifetime pension tax allowances, and wills and estate planning.

• Search firm Norman Broadbent has entered into a partnership with the Quoted Companies Alliance to deliver talent acquisition and advisory solutions for QCA members.

The governance package is aimed at specifically providing assurance for the boards of small and mid-size quoted companies.

• Provider of accountancy, umbrella and back-office services for contractors and recruitment agencies PayStream has achieved preferred supplier status with Edinburgh recruitment agency Recruitment Zone.

• Recruitment software provider Recruitive has been accepted as a supplier for the government’s latest G-Cloud framework, G-Cloud 9.

G-Cloud is a government initiative aimed at easing procurement by public sector bodies in departments of UK government by providing a single store of cloud-based services for use by public sector organisations via an online marketplace. It aims to save public sector organisations and suppliers the time and cost traditionally associated with individual procurement contracts.

• e-recruitment firm WCN has been awarded a place on the government’s G-Cloud 9 framework.

Under the framework, public sector organisations, including agencies, can use the digital marketplace to purchase WCN technology for e-recruitment and talent management system projects over the next two years.

• Southampton Football Club has chosen to use enterprise cloud applications provider Workday’s Workday Financial Management and Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) systems to streamline its finance and HR processes, including payroll, for playing and non-playing staff.

Using Workday’s system, Southampton FC will aim to have a unified, cloud-based finance and HR system providing the entire organisation with visibility into real-time data needed to make more informed hiring decisions.

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