TUPE Revised
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The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 ("the Regulations") came into effect on 6 April 2006 replacing the original 1981 version. This document is an introduction to the key changes. The Regulations and the BERR Guide are available on the BERR website. The 2006 Regulations apply to TUPE transfers, which occur on or after 6 April 2006. |
Top Data Protection Issues for HR Managers
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This document summarises the key issues for HR professionals in dealing with data for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998. It is intended as a practical guide and not an exhaustive account of the relevant law which is complex and covers such areas as record keeping , requirements on recruitment , vetting, medicals, testing, email monitoring , and business disposals. |
Employment law update
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This document summarises key changes in UK employment law over the past year, as well as highlighting changes which will come into force over the next twelve months. This includes important case law developments and various legislative changes such as the new law on corporate manslaughter, the Pensions Act 2007, and the introduction of smoke free environments. |
What's Your Grievance?
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The statutory grievance procedures, introduced from 1 October 2004, require employees, in certain circumstances, to raise workplace concerns with their employers prior to issuing tribunal proceedings. The aim of grievance procedures is to encourage employees and employers to resolve workplace disputes without recourse to legal action.
Since these statutory procedures have been introduced, case law has been flowing thick and fast. One of the main issues has been for the Courts to try and help identify what is meant by a grievance under these procedures. As we will see, the meaning of a grievance under these procedures should not be confused with an employer's general understanding of “raising a grievance” as they may not overlap. The consequences of getting it wrong can be severe for both employer and employee. An employer may fall foul of an employment tribunal for not having completed its obligations under these procedures and have any award against it increased. An employee may also have any award decreased by a tribunal for the same reason but may also find that he or she is unable to bring a claim in the tribunal in the first place. The general rule is that a complaint must be raised and 28 days must elapse before a Tribunal claim can be filed; if the complaint is not raised, the tribunal claim will not be accepted. |
Long Term Sickness - October 2006
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The termination of employment of an employee who is absent due to sickness is now a complex matter. Potential liabilities are more numerous and greater than before. An employer must take into account the type of illness or condition, the procedure to be followed, the information it needs to make key management decisions about the sick employee, and the employment rights it must observe to avoid expensive litigation. Those employment rights include notice rights (whether contractual or statutory), unfair dismissal rights, contractual entitlements to benefits under a Permanent Health Insurance policy (PHI) or Long Term Disability policy, disability discrimination rights under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (“DDA”), and ill-health early retirement pension rights. A structured approach is required by management so that the above rights are taken into account in arriving at the best solution, i.e. the solution which minimises liability for the Company. This requires careful management control. Getting it wrong can prove very expensive, as there is no statutory limit on compensation for disability discrimination; damages for not providing PHI benefits could reflect loss of benefits to normal retirement age or further, now that the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 have come into force; and the maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal is now £58,400 (this amount rises from 1 February each year).The employer must consider the type of illness or condition involved. This document deals primarily with those on long term sickness absence or where the illness or condition indicates a disability for the purposes of the DDA. |
Employee Consultation on Pensions
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Whether the proposed change is likely to amount to a contractual one or not, employers and others (please see below) must now consult employee representatives in respect of active and prospective members on “listed changes” to pension schemes notified on or after 6 April 2006. The Pensions Act 2004 contains powers to make regulations in this area. This download summarises the key changes contained in the new consultation regulations and examines the relationship with other statutory duties to consent. |
Age DIscrimination Law
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The UK Government must implement age discrimination law by December 2006. The Government will introduce such legislation to give effect to the EC Equal Treatment Framework Directive 2000 in the area of age discrimination on 1 October 2006. The first consultation paper on age discrimination appeared in July 2003 “Equality and Diversity: Age Matters”. In July 2005, the second consultation paper entitled “Equality and Diversity: Coming of Age” was published which in large part was based on responses to the earlier paper and contained draft regulations. This consultation period came to an end on 17 October. The final draft Regulations were laid before Parliament in March. These were accompanied by a detailed Note on the Regulations and a Report on responses to the Consultation Paper. |
Pensions A Day
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“A-Day” was the 6 April 2006. As from A-Day, a single regime on the tax treatment of pensions applies. The old differences between personal pensions, occupational pensions, and other pension schemes have disappeared. Most of the changes described here are contained in the Finance Act 2004 based on previous Government proposals. However, significant changes to how pension schemes are run are contained in the Pensions Act 2004. Of particular importance is the statutory obligation to consult employees on major changes to all types of employer funded pension schemes contained in new regulations. |
Job References File 1
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Basic Summary
• Any reference provided must be accurate as to its contents and must not be misleading;
• there is a need for a clear policy so that the giving of references whether in writing or orally is properly recorded;
• if a restricted reference approach is adopted, the company must stick to it;
• a restricted reference may still result in a claim as the law has yet to deal properly with the issues here;
• an employer should clearly set out who should be responsible for the giving of references to ensure mistakes are not made;
• all references given should be marked “Strictly Private & Confidential”;
• each reference should be accompanied with a disclaimer regarding any liability in negligence or otherwise arising from the reference;
• warn employees who are not responsible for giving references that they must not give out information even of an informal nature to a prospective employer, and in particular give guidance that there is no such thing as an “off the record” comment.
• There is no general duty to provide a reference, but employers who do not provide a reference may face claims for unlawful discrimination – as a refusal could amount to victimisation.
These points are explored in more detail in the accompanying document. |
Part time employees
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The Part-Time Worker Regulations will come into force on 1 July 2000. The Regulations introduce for the first time into UK law the formal concept of part-timer discrimination. Part-timers will now be able to enforce their right to equality directly through the Tribunals without having to rely on the Sex Discrimination Act. New rights include the right to receive equal access to benefits with full-timers, the right to receive the same benefits (calculated pro rata where appropriate) and the right to request written reasons for discrimination. |
Religious & Sexual Orientation Anti-Discrimination Law
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On 1 and 2 December 2003, new Regulations prohibiting discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and religion or belief respectively came into force. The introduction of these measures is intended to implement important strands of the equality provisions contained in the Equal Treatment Framework, Race, and Equal Treatment Amendment Directives. These Directives based upon Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam prohibit discrimination on a wide set of grounds including gender, race, sexual orientation, religion or belief, disability, and age. This has involved Member States reviewing and overhauling their current legal rules in these areas and where appropriate introducing new law for the very first time. This download summarises the new legislation and examines guidelines for employers. |
RIP - Email Document
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The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (the Act) came into force on 28 July 2000. It sets out a framework for the legitimate monitoring and recording of telecommunication systems, creating new civil and criminal offences, and through the Act and derivative legislation the basis or conditions in law for the interception of such communications. The Act deals with the powers of the Police and other agencies to carry out telephone tapping and other forms of surveillance, but its ambit is much wider, affecting anyone who attempts to monitor or record information, whether telephone calls or emails or any form of communication transmitted over a public or private telecommunications system. This Guide deals with privacy at work in the context of email, telephone, and internet use, and the issues involved for employers arising from two major legislative developments in this area. The first section deals with the Act and the derivative legislation as it affects employers. The second section deals with the impact of the Data Protection Act 1998 (the 1998 Act). Unfortunately, this is an intricate area and we have been unable to avoid listing all the relevant provisions. Matters are compounded by the uneasy fit between these provisions and the Act. The third section looks at email, telephone, and internet use at work more generally. |
