Cadbury Schweppes has held talks with Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, about a possible role in running schools - as the Government prepares to ban chocolate from colleges.
The firm, which employs 3,000 people at the Cadbury chocolate factory in Bournville, Birmingham, met Ms Kelly at her invitation, earlier this week.
The Government plans to create a new category of school called trust schools, which will be managed by private-sector organisations including charities, religious groups or businesses.
Computer giant Microsoft and consultants KPMG took part in public talks with Ms Kelly and Tony Blair on Monday, but it has emerged that a number of companies including Cadbury Schweppes held private discussions at the same time.
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Severn Trent Water has apologised to customers after "deliberately miscalculated or poorly supported" data inflated bills by #42 million.
The utility, which serves eight million customers in the UK, is already in the process of refunding households but is now likely to find itself punished with a further cap on its previously agreed price rises.
Ofwat reprimanded Severn Trent in an interim report after income data submitted to the regulator for a price review covering the period 2005 to 2010 turned out to be incorrect.
The final penalty will only be known once an ongoing investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into reliability of leakage data is known.
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A charity which has spent more than ten years helping homeless people across the country has revealed it can no longer survive and will be forced to close in less than two months.
Staff at the National Rent Deposit Forum (NRDF), which is based in Birmingham but works across England, have been forced to bring an end to their services after failing to secure further funding.
Set up in 1995 the NRDF has built up a strong nationwide network of over 250 members and remains to date the only organisation that provides specialised support and advice to rent deposit schemes.
Over the last ten years the NRDF has advised thousands of clients, supported hundreds of successful schemes, provided tailored training to housing workers and campaigned on housing issues on behalf of members.
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Civic and business leaders have joined forces to debate a vision to turn Birmingham into a world-class city.
More than 150 representatives from the commercial, industrial and political world gathered at the International Convention Centre to discuss how to boost regeneration and roll out successful city centre redevelopment to the rest of Birmingham.
The gathering set an aim of promoting Birmingham into the top tier of world cities by 2026, behind London, Paris, New York, Sydney and Tokyo.
The Summit for the Future, organised by the city council, aimed to signal a new united approach by local government and the private sector, working together for the common good.
Read more on these stories in Wednesday's Birmingham Post
