BusinessZone.co.uk is always keen to support new entrepreneurial talent which is why we've launched The Start Line. This regularly updated section profiles the UK's newest and most exciting businesses.

Can you make money and help others at the same time? Gina Dyer meets social entrepreneur Karen Darby, who is about to launch a business that will create 10,000 jobs for unemployed people in the UK's most deprived areas.

It's not often you get to be a part of something that’s a both a commercial and philanthropic success but Polly Gower, founder of Everyclick.com, appears to have come up with the magic formula.

Friends often make the best business partners, but it can also be a recipe for disaster. Thankfully for Ross Elder and Andy Firth, co-founders of Holidaylettings.co.uk, business is booming and the relationship remains in tact. Gina Dyer meets the mogul mates behind Britain's fastest growing holiday home rental website.

In an exclusive video interview, Deborah Meaden, entrepreneur and star of Dragons' Den, offers some sound advice for business owners looking for opportunities amid the economic doom and gloom and also reveals why, unlike other high profile entrepreneurs, she doesn't use social network Twitter.

In the first in a new series of exclusive video interviews, Julie Meyer, who led start-up investment in Lastminute.com, talks entrepreneurship.

Scottish Government - Detailed analysis of road accidents and casualties on Scottish roads.

Office for National Statistics - Latest data on the Public Sector Net Borrowing, Net debt and the cash requirement.

Children, Schools and Families - The GCSE, GCE and AEA code of practice requires awarding bodies to make sure that candidates with particular requirements can demonstrate their skills, knowledge and understanding, for example by providing modified question papers for candidates with visual impairments. The code makes clear that arrangements must be based on the needs of individual candidates and must not give them an unfair advantage or undermine the integrity of the qualifications in any way. In addition, the code of practice states that awarding bodies must give special consideration to candidates affected by an unforeseen and temporary illness, injury or incident at the time of the exam.

Children, Schools and Families - This Statistical First Release reports on statistics on numbers and percentages of young people qualified to levels 2 and 3 by age, cohort and qualification type.

HM Revenue and Customs - Number of property transactions processed with value £40,000 or above - monthly

Office for National Statistics - Weekly release of provisional figures

Office for National Statistics - CPI, RPI and RPIX data for February 2009, including main contributions and tables

Welsh Assembly Government - This statistical bulletin looks at academic achievement by gender, ethnicity, special educational needs (SEN), absenteeism and month of birth.

This month saw California's Hacker Dojo host the Random Hacks of Kindness event, which brought independent coders together with developers from Google, Microsoft, Nasa, Yahoo! and other organisations to work on projects to help with disaster relief.

See more photos from the hackathon here.

Server virtualisation is rapidly becoming an accepted part of the corporate IT infrastructure - and now industry experts are predicting that it won't be long until corporate desktops follow suit.

Desktop virtualisation refers to the running of a PC's operating system within a central datacentre. Users have a screen and terminal (or thin client) on their desk, which connects to the operating system running on the server via the local network. To the user, the experience is similar to the operating system running on their physical machine but in reality the processes are run and the data is stored in a central location.

Encouraging businesses to go green is good but the government must better incorporate outsourcing in its carbon control scheme, says the NOA's Mark Kobayashi-Hillary

Much is being said about the UK government's upcoming Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme but it remains unclear how much of this talk is translating into action and what impact the scheme will have on the outsourcing and offshoring industries.

Anti-ageism legislation isn't working and the IT industry continues to discriminate against older techies. That's the verdict of the exclusive 2009 silicon.com Skills Survey.

The majority (51 per cent) of survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the IT industry discriminates against older workers, compared with less than a fifth (18 per cent) who held the opposite view.

Shared services delivered through the cloud will help the public sector shave billions from its annual IT spend, according to a leaked Whitehall report.

The leaked draft document, Government ICT Strategy: New world, new challenges, new opportunities, sets out priorities for public sector IT chiefs through to 2020.

November's top stories on silicon.com tackled some big questions: does my business need an office? Can I work solely on a netbook? Will the UK ever create a Google, Microsoft or Oracle of its very own?

November also dealt with the perennial question of will the UK's ID cards programme ever run to plan?

Working out your budgets and trying to figure out the tech priorities for your HR department in 2010? Nick Heath has a few suggestions for HR directors as to where to invest that cash on technology to get the most benefits for your team and the rest of the business.

Consider standardising your systemsTake a look at what you do in the HR department and the chances are a number of companies are doing exactly the same thing: processes like payroll and benefits administration or training and recruitment will need to be carried out at any large organisation. As a result, adopting standardised systems for common processes is worth considering for enterprises that are relying on expensive, bespoke IT systems.

With recession leading businesses to cut IT costs as much as they can, tech workers are increasingly feeling the impact of offshoring, results from the exclusive 2009 silicon.com Skills Survey show.

Almost half (47.5 per cent) of respondents said their organisation has probably offshored IT jobs - up from more than a third (36 per cent) who thought that was the case last year.

Compiled on the M6 driving to Liverpool and dispatched to silicon.com a couple of weeks later via a free wi-fi connection in my hotel.

I just cannot work any faster or smarter - I seem to have exhausted every degree of freedom, every element of efficiency improvement I can muster.

We've all made embarrassing mobile phone blunders as part of our busy modern lives.

We've all done something with a mobile that has led to fingers pointed in mirth and mockery: a few years ago the Round-Up even had one of those Bluetooth headsets that make you look like a minicab driver (although the cash from all those unexpected fares came in handy at Christmas).

Tougher sentences for knife possession - More criminals continue to go to prison for carrying a knife - and for longer - while the number of cautions for knife possession has fallen again. [Ministry of Justice]

The front main door of a hotel in Buckinghamshire was smashed in by approximately 8 armed police at 4.30 am Thursday morning.Terrified guests were woken up by police knocking on their doors looking for someone.
The staff at the hotel were stressed by the action and guests complained about the police action.
The action appeared to be inappropriate. The police had already called into the hotel the day before with photos asking staff if they had seen the person. There was no person in the hotel with that description.
The management of the hotel consider that the action taken by the police was heavy handed and not good for their business. A phone call to discuss the matter by the police would have saved police time and money.

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Other news from The Telegraph

Police forces pay £500,000 compensation
Police paid out more than half a million pounds in compensation last year for raiding the wrong properties.

Forces across Britain shelled out to repair broken doors, smashed windows, wrecked walls and even damaged ornaments.

According to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, 30 police forces paid £560,000 in compensation and repair costs last year.

The Metropolitan Police Service paid out the most, £283,829, more than half the total sum nationwide.

They also issued the highest single payout, £6,932, though the force was not able to reveal what this was for.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) had the next highest overalltotal, paying £45,072.70 last year, followed closely by Lothian and Borders Police with £43,880.89.

In fourth place Kent Police paid £26,523, while Thames Valley Police came fifth with a total of £25,725.14.

The figures revealed payments for replastering and redecorating, replacing ornaments, fixing locks and providing glazing services.

The most common costs among 3,607 payouts were for replacing or repairing doors, listed by 50 per cent of forces.

In the last financial year Durham police paid out for damage to 35 doors while Northamptonshire Police had to replace eight.

Due to time constraints most forces were unable to break down each claim individually.

But 13 per cent of police forces admitted repairing locks and seven per cent said they had had to pay to replace ornaments.

Another ten per cent said they had to pay compensation after breaking into the wrong address.

Grampian Police paid £1,159.71 last year ''for entering the wrong property when attempting to execute a lawful warrant''.

Dyfed Powys Police had to pay £1,000 for raiding an ''incorrect address'' and Strathclyde Police paid an undisclosed sum following a ''forced entry to the wrong house''.

In September drugs officers from Northamptonshire Police terrified a young mother when they tried to smash down her front door with a battering ram - with a warrant for next door.

Nursery nurse Carly Payne, 24, was breastfeeding five-day-old daughter Bella on the sofa when police burst in, arresting her partner, stepfather and his friend - who were later released without charge.

The mother-of-two from Wellingborough, Northants., said the police should be ''ashamed'' for bungling more than 3,600 raids last year.

She said: ''That's an absolute joke. Northants Police told me these mistakes were rare but it looks like the police screw things up all over the country.

''It's crazy, I can't believe there have been so many mistakes. The police need to do their homework much better in the future.''

Northamptonshire Police have finally replaced her door 12 weeks on.

According to the statistics the majority of claims paid out are for repair costs, but some are more unusual.

More unusual compensation payments from last year came from Northamptonshire Police, who paid £40 for a damaged pet cage and £100 to repair a tent.

Strathclyde Police had to find £1551.50 after an ''allegation an officer damaged the ceiling during a search''.

Most police authorities confirmed they would only pay compensation if their officers were deemed to have acted ''unlawfully''.

Compensation is only appropriate if the search is ''not lawful'' or force used cannot be shown to be ''reasonable, proportionate and necessary to effect entry''.

Telegraph Dec 2009

5 ways to hit back at greedy energy giants - Energy firms are raking it in as millions of people struggle. But there are ways of cutting your bills and newcomer First Utility could be worth a look

[Bargains and Rip-offs]

FSA chief: Bailout bill may hit £140bn - The UK's financial watchdog warned that the cost of bailing out the banking sector could be as much as £140bn, far higher than Treasury forecasts

[Money News]

Ex-Labour leader Michael Foot dies at 96 - Michael Foot was seen as too eccentric and leftwing to be prime minister, but such were his charm, wit and erudition that the Labour politician will be remembered with affection even by those who never voted for him [Financial Times]

Financiers 'discuss Man Utd bid' - A group of financiers - dubbed the "Red Knights" - meet for the first time to discuss taking over Man Utd, BBC Sport understands. [Business]

Government programme improving lives of families and communities blighted by anti-social behaviour - - New report shows Family Intervention Projects have ‘overwhelmingly positive’ impact on families involved in anti-social behaviour ... (2010/0052) [DCSF]

Should the BBC be cut? - The BBC has announced that it plans to make dramatic cuts to its services in order to reinvest savings in more original and distinctive content – “to make fewer things better”, in the words of Director General Mark Thompson.

Proposed changes – which include the closure of digital radio stations 6Music and Asian Network as well as a restructure of the website – have already provoked criticism, with campaigns on Twitter and Facebook signing up thousands and already prompting hints of a rethink.  But, unlike other public services floating the ideas of cuts, the BBC’s strong position means that, as Emily Bell writes in today’s Guardian “the BBC might look as if it’s in retreat. But its dominance remains“. Indeed set against a broader picture of declining revenues for commercial broadcasting and print media, plus the continuing inability of traditional media companies to find ways of making the web pay, these ‘cuts’ can be seen as a strategy to protect the BBC’s current significant place in the UK’s broadcasting eco-system, at the expense of others. Although ITV, News International and Channel 4 may benefit from decreased competition, there is no guarantee that they will – or can – step up to the plate and provide the (public) services the BBC is – witness Channel 4’s own retreat from its digital radio plans. [Intute]

Autism strategy for England published - There is now an official autism strategy for England, following the new Autism Act, the first ever strategy of its kind in this country.   It sets out key recommendations for central government and local authorities.  These mainly affect adults, who so far have not had a great deal of support and are often hidden members of society.  Read all about it on the National  Autistic Society website.   Or view the full version of the Autism Act 2009.
Find quality resources on Autism in Intute’s Social Welfare section. [Intute]

British Gas profits jump by 58% - Operating profits at British Gas jumped by 58% in 2009, its parent company Centrica says. [Main News]

The range, which includes models sizes from 13.3 inches to 17.3 inches, is based on Intel's latest Core i-series processors

Refusing to provide passenger data to the US would not be helpful, according to European Parliament PNR lead Sophie In 't Veld

The Communication Workers Union has raised questions about the job cuts and the operator's plans to add 170 new staff in 'customer-facing roles'

A panel of leading cryptographers reveal lessons they have learned while making seemingly imprudent decisions

The equipment manufacturer has added collaboration tools using voice, instant messaging, presence and video to IP Office

The cloud-based CRM provider has challenged SaaS rivals to match its new licensing model, meant to be more flexible and easier for customers

The latest version of the Android Native Developer Kit promises to let developers tap into OpenGL ES 2.0 for accelerated graphics

The online retailer has terminated its relationship with a supplier after fake Core i7-920 CPUs were sent out to some customers

Cybercriminals are expanding their phishing attacks beyond finance to include top brands as their victims

A poll by the BBC World Service showed that four out of five adults in 26 countries believe the internet is a right and should never be regulated

The former chief technology officer for Novell will work with director Tim Berners-Lee to shape future standardisation efforts

Health authorities are pushing through a project to centralised medical records before the completition of a study on its impact

A backdoor could allow an attacker to remotely take control of a Windows-based PC, Energizer and US-Cert is warning

The identity protection company has released an Android version of VIP Access for Mobile, which adds extra security for logons made on mobile phones

London authorities have not done enough to make good on a central government commitment to use more open source, according to the Green Party. London Assembly Green Party member Darren Johnson...

The security company has cut approximately 100 positions as part of its restructuring and redefining job functions

The United States has lifted sanctions on Cuba, Iran and Sudan for personal Internet-based communications services. On Monday, the US Treasury said it was amending sanctions regulations for...

The vulnerability in the popular HTTP web server could let an outsider remotely take complete control of a database

The industrial action by members of the Public and Commercial Services Union is part of a dispute over job security and pay

The presidency, held by Spain, wants to lay the groundwork for sharing of digital healthcare data between EU and US systems