Since 1995, employers have been able to reclaim statutory sick pay (SSP) from HMRC, provided he total SSP paid in a month exceeds 13% of their Class 1 National Insurance Contributions for that month. The government has now pushed through Parliament a draft order to abolish the recovery of SSP. This measure, announced in January 2013, is expected to take effect on 6 April 2014. According to the...
When does the enhancement of statutory redundancy pay become a custom and practice conferring a contractual right on employees to enhanced redundancy pay? An example of a consistent practice of an employer calculating redundancy payments without the statutory caps is found in the recent case of Peacock Stores v Peregrine, where the employer was found to be bound by an implied contractual right....
Following on from our previous article "Procurement changes on the horizon - Part 1" this article sets out the current status of the revised EU procurement directives, and discusses some of the proposed amendments to the existing procurement regime....
It was confirmed in the Chancellor`s budget yesterday that there will be new arrangements for working parents to provide tax benefits to help towards the costs of childcare. The new online scheme will come into effect from September 2015. It will apply to care for children up to the age of five at first, before extending to children up to the age of 12. Parents will buy vouchers from the govern...
The Chancellor announced in his budget yesterday that the Government will be clamping down on the use of intermediary companies being used to disguise employment as self-employment. The biggest sector affected will be construction. However, it seems that HMRC is also concerned about other sectors such as driving, catering and security in using intermediary companies as a payroll mechanism design...
The Cabinet Office has published an update confirming that the 2014 EU procurement directives (which were approved by the EU Council on 11 February 2014) will be published in the Official Journal on 28 March 2014 and will come into force on 17 April 2014. Member states will then have two years to transpose the Directives into national legislation....
The Claimants in the cases of Owu v Akwiwu; Taiwo v Olaigbe were both Nigerian nationals who came to the UK after being granted visas to work as migrant domestic workers for two separate families. Both were subsequently badly treated and exploited by their employers, through long working hours, underpayment, restrictive living conditions and physical and verbal abuse. The Claimant`s were success...
Addressing an exclusive audience of Thames Valley senior executives, the CBI`s Director of Economics Stephen Gifford announced last week that the UK economy is gathering momentum and is currently enjoying record levels of business optimism. However, he cautioned that to sustain this recovery, it is imperative that businesses increase investment....
It`s easier than ever before for employees secretly to record disciplinary, appeal and grievance meetings, using their mobile phones. But are these secret recordings admissible as evidence before an employment tribunal? According to the EAT in Chairman and Governors of Amwell View School v Dogherty, that depends on whether the recording is of the ‘open` part of the hearing (i.e. the part during...
In January we reported that the Government had published draft regulations increasing the financial penalty for employers who fail to pay their workers national minimum wage. The final regulations - The National Minimum Wage (Variation of Financial Penalty) Regulations 2014 - have now been published and came into force on 7th March 2014. These regulations increase the financial penalty from 50%...
Building Information Modelling is its official label; but BIM is essentially about effective sharing and management of information for the collective benefit of all involved on a construction project....
It is a fundamental principle of the English legal system that certain documents recording legal advice or prepared for the purpose of anticipated legal proceedings are inadmissible as evidence in Court proceedings. Such communications are protected by what is known as legal privilege...
Clarkslegal`s corporate team, headed by partner Ashan Arif, recently advised London-based language processing technologies company, Chatterbox Labs, on a restructuring of its shares....
The recent High Court case of 199 Knightsbridge Development Ltd v WSP UK Ltd deals with the standard of care owed by professionals...
The Order that abolishes the Equality Act`s statutory discrimination questionnaires has now been published. This will mean that individuals won`t be able to obtain information from their employers using the prescribed questionnaire procedure where the discriminatory acts complained of take place on or after 6 April 2014. The procedure can still be used for acts occurring before this date though....
ACAS early conciliation for tribunal claims comes into force on 6 April 2014. It will be mandatory from 6 May 2014, meaning that from that date, all employment tribunal claims, with very few exceptions, must first go through ACAS conciliation before the claim can proceed. Transitional provisions cover the period between 6 April and 5 May 2014 during which the new early conciliation procedure will be available to prospective claimants, although not mandatory.The prohibition on issuing proceedings without an early conciliation certificate may apply if a prospective claimant commences early conciliation in the period beginning 6 April 2014 and ending on 5 May 2014, and presents a tribunal claim on or before 5 May 2014....
We recently reported that the new changes surrounding an employee`s right to request flexible working arrangements had been delayed. The new rules were due to come into force on 6 April 2014, however, the government has since announced a new implementation date of 30 June 2014....
In the recent case of Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Jobcentre Plus) v Jamil and others the EAT held that an employer`s failure to make reasonable adjustments was a continuing act and not a one-off omission meaning that the three month time limit to bring a claim did not start running from the date of the initial failure. Under the Equality Act 2010, if a disabled person is put at a s...
An individual (data subject) has the right to access personal data about them from anyone who may hold this (data controller) and can write to the data controller to request sight of this data. This can be done as a data subject access request or, where the request is made of a public authority, a freedom of information request. Personal data is defined as data which relates to a living indivi...
The limits on employment tribunal awards and other amounts payable will increase on 6 April 2014. See our updated HR Facts & Figures. In cases involving dismissal, the new limits will apply where the effective date of termination falls on or after 6 April 2014....