GPs can spot patients who will claim incapacity benefit for mental health issues three years before they stop working, research published in the British Medical Journal has suggested....
HMRC has clarified the tax rules surrounding the Cycle to Work scheme. This should encourage more employers to offer the benefit to their workforce, as companies who strive to go green were previously put off by the uncertainty around the scheme....
The case of Enable Care & Support Home Ltd v Pearson [2010] is an example where a tribunal fell into the trap of substituting its own judgment for that of the employer....
Under TUPE, any dismissal or change to terms and conditions of employment which is connected with a relevant transfer is unfair or invalid, unless it can be shown that the dismissal or change was for an economic, technical or organisational reason entailing a change in the workforce (an "ETO" reason)....
The House of Lords in HM Revenue & Customs v Stringer [2009] held that claims for holiday pay can be a series of deductions. Since the decision, employers have been apprehensive that employees who have been off sick for several years may be able to claim backdated holiday pay for the whole period upon termination. This issue came to light in the recent case of Khan v Martin McColl [2010]....
Despite only coming into force in April 2010 for employers with over 250 employees, and not yet being applicable to smaller firms, the Coalition Government is considering scrapping the right to request time off for training (which was given by the previous Labour Government)....
Official figures have shown that unemployment fell in the three months to May this year, to a total of 2.47 million. However, according to reports from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), a third of employers expect to cut jobs in the next three months. Also, the CIPD report that the size of the cuts being considered has also increased....
The coalition government rose from the ashes of the most controversial general election in recent times to deliver a budget with bite. Although we are officially out of the recession, the key elements of the budget which impact on employers seem far from measures to promote growth and reduce unemployment....
From 1 October 2010 a new streamlined process to allow enforcement of settlements contained in Acas COT3 forms will be introduced....
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that output VAT must be paid on retail vouchers given to staff under salary sacrifice schemes, which allow employees to elect to take certain benefits in lieu of salary as part of their remuneration package....
Under TUPE, employees` terms are protected when they are transferred to the private sector. In addition, the 2003 voluntary code of practice on workforce matters in local authority service contracts guarantees that anyone recruited to work in the outsourced business will be on "no less favourable terms" than those workers who were previously in the public sector. The same principles apply to most other public sector service contracts as a result of a further code of practice published in 2005....
The Central London Employment Tribunal is trialing a new system whereby an ACAS Conciliator is present at the tribunal office to assist parties in conducting settlement discussions....
On 22 July 2010, the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) launched a consultation paper, "Skills for Sustainable Growth". The consultation outlines seeks views on proposals for addressing the significant issue of an ever increasing unskilled workforce. Consultation closes on 14 October 2010....
The current default retirement age (DRA) of 65 has been under the spotlight since the introduction of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations back in 2006 and has not been without its critics. Today marks the start of a period of consultation by the Government into its proposals to phase out the DRA, which include plans for a six-month transitional period....
Under TUPE, all collective agreements relating to the transferring employees transfer to the transferee where they are bound by the terms in force at the date of transfer. Any subsequent changes or new collective agreements will not ordinarily bind a transferee if they are not a party to it....
Compensation for personal loss of reputation is generally excluded from unfair dismissal compensation. However, following the much publicised case of Bank of Credit and Commerce International SA (BCCI) an exception arose which gave rise to the principle that is termed as ‘Stigma Damages`....
Ever since the House of Lords ruled in HM Revenue & Customs v Stringer and others last year that employees could claim accrued but untaken annual leave going back a number of years, as part of a series of unauthorised deductions, if they had been unable to take the leave owing to sickness absence, employers have been looking for a way to mitigate the effects of that decision....
The question of whether it is unlawful age discrimination to cap contractual redundancy payments in order to prevent employees from receiving a windfall (i.e. a redundancy payment together with the ability to draw a pension) was put into the spotlight by the EAT in the recent case of Kraft Foods Ltd v Hastie....
Most employers adopt standard redundancy scoring criteria which include objective criteria such as levels of sickness absence. Again, most employers know that to avoid discriminating against disabled employees any periods of sickness that relate to a disability should be discounted from the disabled employee`s score. This would be a reasonable adjustment for employers to make....
When an employee transfers to another employer under TUPE, his terms and conditions are preserved. This may cause problems if the employer inherits men and women doing the same job but on different rates of pay. There is nothing the new employer can do to remedy the inequality - or is there?...