Major changes are happening this April as businesses become responsible for deciding the employment status of the contractors they engage through an agency or the contractor’s own limited company, known as a Personal Service Company or PSC. ...
At the start of this lockdown, we discussed the Government’s expansion of the furlough scheme to allow employers to furlough those who cannot work due to caring responsibilities (which includes looking after children who would otherwise be in school)....
There have been 53 updates to the Government’s health and safety guidance on making workplaces “COVID-secure” since May 2020....
Last week, the Government announced its expansion of community asymptomatic testing to identify more positive cases of COVID-19....
The WhatsApp privacy confusion – what is actually going on and should you continue to use the app?...
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) guidance was updated on 10 November 2020, warning employers that submitting a CJRS claim from 1 December 2020 onwards meant they were also agreeing to HMRC publishing their names....
The UK government is relying on the national vaccination programme against COVID-19 as a route out of this crisis. The programme is voluntary and the government is clear that it will remain this way, both for civil liberties and public health reasons......
Last week our look back on 2020 reflected on Public Health and the COVID-19 pandemic, this article considers 2020 in terms of the equality agenda. Although, the constant refrain from the Government has been that we are all in this pandemic together and all have a part to play to get out of it, it is clear that this pandemic has not hit all members of society equally....
Twenty-three employees have won the maximum ‘Protective Award’ of 90 days extra pay because their employer failed to ‘inform and consult’ with them about their redundancies. Under S188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULCRA), employers must follow collective consultation rules where it proposes to make over 20 redundancies in a 90 day period....
The coronavirus pandemic resulted in the postponement of many employment law changes due to take place in 2020. This article investigates some of the key developments anticipated over the next 12 months. ...
The year 2020 will always be a stand-out year in our personal and professional lives. COVID-19 brought so much suffering to so many across the globe and created a level of uncertainty that we had never experienced before. Businesses were forced to adapt at breakneck speed. ...
Again, employers and employees are facing the difficult balancing act of managing work and childcare through this third national lockdown. The three main options for employers to manage such leave are to place affected parents/guardians on furlough, have parents use their annual leave to take time off or take unpaid leave....
A new mother who was not invited to her work Christmas party whilst on maternity leave has succeeded in her claim against her employer....
Monica Atwal takes an in-depth look at the Next Equal Pay case and the news that documents relating to the case had been destroyed in a thought leadership article published in Governance and Compliance Magazine....
Now that the UK is past its first week of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, employers are starting to consider what 2021 will look like and whether there is hope of the workplace returning to some form of normality. The question on many employers’ minds is - can we require our staff to get vaccinated?...
The Government’s CEST tool, designed to help determine whether a worker will be caught by the changes to the off payroll working rules (IR35) was unable to reach a conclusion in 19% of cases checked in the last year. ...
This month, the BEIS (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) opened their consultation on reforming employment contract non-compete clauses. Back in 2016, there was a close to universal consensus amongst employers that restrictive covenants are a valuable instrument for those seeking to protect their business interests. At the same time, their perceived impact on an ex-employee’s ability to find new work was deemed insignificant, or not unfair. ...
The April 2021 statutory maternity, paternity and sick pay rates have been released by the Government. The increases are modest at less than £1 per week. ...
The Employment Tribunal has issued a timely reminder to employers of the dangers of social media in the workplace, after finding in Abdi v Deltec International Courier Ltd that the employee had been harassed by her colleagues via WhatsApp. ...
The standard EC period is now 6 weeks rather than a month (but there is no longer the possibility of extending it by 2 weeks). Although this may appear to give people... ...