January 7 2008 Employment Law Enews

Happy New Year! Welcome to the first Employment Law Enews of 2008 from Steeles Law.

*****NEW YEAR SEMINAR DATES ANNOUNCED*****

To start off the New Year we will be running two seminars at venues in both Norwich (31 Jan) and London (6 Feb) focusing on the top ten developments of 2007 as well as some predictions of forthcoming developments to ensure you start 2008 in the best shape to protect your business. Topics include; Statutory dispute resolution, Age discrimination, collective consultation, Negotiated terminations, immigration, disability discrimination and statutory holiday developments.

To book your place please see the seminar area of our website or click http://www.steeleslaw.co.uk/seminars.aspx

NEW EMPLOYMENT BILL PUBLISHED

The Government has recently published its new Employment Bill, which will repeal the statutory dispute resolution procedures. Many employers will breathe a sigh of relief, given the complexity of the procedures and the difficulties in putting them into practice. What will replace them? Essentially, the law will revert to the same position pre-October 2004 and employers will no longer be compelled to follow any fixed procedure in order to avoid a finding of automatically unfair dismissal. Likewise, employees will not be obliged to submit a formal grievance before submitting certain tribunal claims.

Instead, the ACAS Code of Practice will be revised and extended and tribunals will have a discretion to increase tribunal awards by up to 25 per cent if an employer unreasonably fails to comply with a Code of Practice. There will similarly be a discretion for tribunals to reduce awards by up to 25 per cent if an employee fails to comply with a Code of Practice.

The repeal of the statutory procedures will also mean that minor procedural failures by an employer will result in a finding of unfair dismissal, even if the employer can demonstrate that it would still have dismissed the employee even if the procedure had been followed in full. Again, this represents a return to the legal position that existed prior to October 2004.

It has been indicated that these changes are most likely to come into effect in April 2009, so for the time being employers must still comply with the statutory procedures. The Bill will also introduce changes to enforcement of the National Minimum Wage, employment agency standards and trade union membership law.

EU MINISTERS DISCUSS EMPLOYMENT DIRECTIVES

EU Ministers met on 5 and 6 December and among the items on the agenda were the proposed Directive on temporary agency work and proposed changes to the Working Time Directive.

A draft agency workers Directive was first introduced in 2002 and its aim was to give agency workers the same basic rights in relation to working hours, overtime, holidays and anti-discrimination as other employees from the start and the same pay after six weeks' employment. This has been a major sticking point for the UK Government. An amended proposal was considered at the meeting earlier this month, but no agreement was reached.

In addition, ministers discussed proposals to amend the Working Time Directive relating to the existing right to opt-out of the 48 hour week. The new proposals would still permit workers to opt-out of the 48 hour week, but place certain limitations on the use of the opt-out.

It had been hoped that it would be possible to find a "simultaneous and integrated solution" to both of these issues, but in the event it was agreed to postpone any decision. Both proposals are likely to be considered again in 2008 and the UK Government will be under pressure from other member states and internally from unions to agree to the proposals. We will keep you posted on future developments.

INCREASE IN STATUTORY RATES ANNOUNCED

The annual increase in tribunal awards has been announced and will apply in respect of all dismissals taking effect on or after 1 February 2008.

A statutory week's pay, relevant to calculating statutory redundancy pay and the basic award in unfair dismissal cases will increase from £310 pounds to £330.

The maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal claims will increase from £60,600 to £63,000.

The new rates for statutory sick pay and statutory maternity, paternity and adoption pay have also been announced and will take effect from 6 April 2008. Statutory sick pay will increase from £72.55 to £75.40 per week. Statutory maternity, paternity and adoption pay will increase from £112.75 to £117.18 per week. In both cases, the earnings threshold for entitlement will increase from £87 to £90 per week.

LATEST SURVEY ON WORK-LIFE BALANCE

The results of the third Work-Life Balance Employer Survey have recently been published, with 95 per cent of workplaces found to offer some form of flexible working for staff and 92 per cent reporting that they would consider a request to change a working pattern from any employee, despite the legislation only requiring employers to do so for certain employees. Only nine per cent of employers had turned down a request for flexible working made in the previous 12 months.

In addition, the number of workplaces providing childcare facilities, or other arrangements to help parents combine work with family commitments, has more than doubled since the last survey was carried out in 2003, from 8 per cent to 18 per cent.

The survey was carried out between March and August 2007, with a random sample of 1,462 workplaces. The Government has claimed the results of the survey to be an endorsement for its staged approach to introducing flexible working. It announced in November its intention to extend the right to request flexible working to parents of older children (currently only parents of children under six, or 18 if they are disabled, have the right to request flexible working).

It also contrasts with the position in relation to the statutory grievance procedures, where tribunals are not obliged to consider whether the employee has lodged a grievance and waited 28 days before submitting a claim. The burden is on the employer to raise this as a defence.

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