From 31 January 2014 TUPE has been amended.  Some of the changes are highly technical and are, in fact, less extensive than originally planned. In summary the changes are: The rules on service provision changes (outsourcing/insourcing situations) will remain, but the legislation will clarify that for there to be a TUPE service provision change, the activities carried on after the change in service provision must be fundamentally or essentially the same as those carried on before it. The requirement to provide employee liability information will be retained, but from 1 May 2014 the information will have to be given 28
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The government has published draft  Regulations, which will increase the maximum financial penalty for employers who flout the national minimum wage from £5,000 to £20,000. This change is expected to come into force in February 2014. In addition, the government also wants to introduce legislation as soon as possible so that the maximum £20,000 penalty can apply in respect of each underpaid worker.
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The Employment Appeal Tribunal decided that the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 did not apply to a group of agency workers who were assigned to one hirer for periods ranging between six and 25 years. Each worker was employed by the agency and had a written statement of particulars which contained many of the features of a permanent contract of employment. The Regulations define “agency worker” as “an individual who is supplied by a temporary work agency to work temporarily for and under the supervision and direction of a hirer”. “Temporary” in this context mean not permanent. For employment purposes, a
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In this case the occupational health adviser had stated that the employee, who had been signed off work for depression caused by work-related stress, was not “covered” by the disability discrimination legislation. The employer argued that because of this OH statement, it could not have known that the employee was in fact disabled. The employer therefore believed that this was sufficient to avoid the obligation to make reasonable adjustments as required by disability legislation. However, the Court of Appeal said that the employer should have gone further. While occupational health assessments or other medical advice may be helpful, a responsible
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The Government has published its plans for shared parental leave.  The Government intends to implement the scheme by 2015. Shared parental leave will allow eligible mothers and their partners to be absent from work to care for a child for a maximum of 52 weeks. Eligible couples could also take up to 39 weeks of shared parental pay. A couple will be able to take the leave together so that the mother will not necessarily return to work after her compulsory maternity leave (the two weeks after the birth). Alternatively, the mother could return to work and allow her partner
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The government has published new guidance for interns about their right to pay. The guidance explains to potential apprentices and interns what their rights are in relation to being paid the national minimum wage and what action to take if they believe they have been exploited. In addition, HMRC  will be sending out letters to 200 employers that have recently advertised intern opportunities and unpaid work. The letters will inform those employers that HMRC will be carrying out checks to ensure that they are paying all their workers the correct national minimum wage.
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An employment tribunal has held that Channel 4’s decision to remove John McCririck as a presenter of Channel 4 Racing was not direct discrimination on the grounds of his age. Channel 4 successfully argued that the decision was made because of his image and presenting style. Although the tribunal found that Channel 4’s objectives in removing the presenter were similar to those of the BBC in O’Reilly v British Broadcasting Corporation, where direct age discrimination was found to have occurred, it decided that in this case Channel 4 did not reach its decision because of Mr McCririck’s age.
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The EAT decided that an employer, in not paying for an employee with work-related stress and depression to have private psychiatric counselling and cognitive behavioral therapy, breached its duty to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010. The adjustments, which were recommended by a consultant psychiatrist, were sufficiently “job-related” to fall within the scheme of the legislation. They would have involved payment for a specific form of support to help the employee return to work and cope with her work-related difficulties. The EAT also made it clear that this was not a case about employers being obliged as a
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This issue will deal with some forthcoming employment law changes, recent guidance that has been published and some significant case law developments. Forthcoming Employment Law Changes As a result of the Government’s recent focus on employment law reform, there will be several key employment law changes coming into force this autumn along with a few things that the Government has decided not to change after all. Repeal of Third Party Anti-Harassment Legislation From 1 October 2013, employees will no longer have specific protection under the Equality Act if they are harassed by a third party contractor.  As a consequence, the
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The Information Commissioner has published a Code of Practice on how to deal with subject access requests for personal information from employees and ex-employees under the Data Protection Act 1988. The Code provides guidance on how to respond to subject access requests, explains how to deal with requests involving other peoples’ information, and gives practical examples of requests and various exemptions.
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