April Employment Law Changes

Introduction

There has been some confusion with regard to changes to employment law taking place in April 2011, given government decisions at a late stage to repeal or delay certain expected legislation. The below seeks to clarify in basic terms what legislation is and is not now taking effect in April 2011.


Legislation Not Taking Effect in April 2011

The Right to Request Flexible Working

Currently the right exists to request flexible working to enable an employee to care for a child under 17 or a disabled child under 18. The right to request flexible working was to be extended to parents with children under 18. This right was to take effect in April 2011. However this is not now to happen.

Bribery Act 2010

This was expected to come into force in April 2011. However its implementation is to be delayed until July 2011 so that the government can issue guidance on what procedures might amount to appropriate anti bribery procedures to protect employers from criminal acts of their employees.

Specific Public Sector Equality

The specific public sector equality duties will not be implemented in April but are expected in July 2011.

Dual Discrimination Under the Equality Act

These provisions are not being implemented.

Right to Request Time Off For Training

The right to request time off for training is not being extended to employers employing less than 250 employees.

Legislation Taking Effect in April 2011

Additional Paternity Leave 6.4.11.

Where a baby is due or matched for adoption after 3.4.11. then the mother/adopter will be able to transfer up to 26 weeks of the maternity/adoption leave to the father or partner. The father or partner cannot start this additional paternity leave earlier than 20 weeks after the birth/adoption placement and must take it before the child is one year old. If the mother/adopter in returning to work has at least 2 weeks worth of SMP/SAP remaining then this entitlement to receive payment transfers to the father or partner. As with maternity leave there is a procedure of notification and other rules and criteria that must be met and or followed.

Default Retirement Age 6.4.11.

The default retirement age is phased out. This means if appropriate notification was not given to retire an employee before 6.4.11. then it will be more problematic to retire an employee. Any such dismissal will need to be objectively justified and will need to follow an appropriate procedure.

Positive Action Under The Equality Act 6.4.11.

In certain circumstances an employer will be able to select a candidate with a protected equal opportunities characteristic over a candidate without such a characteristic where the two candidates are as qualified as one another for a position. As qualified as one another does not simply mean having the same formal qualifications.

General Public Sector Duty 6.4.11.

The general public sector equality duty comes into force. This requires public bodies to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, and to advance equal opportunities.

Statutory Payments

The rate of Statutory Sick Pay increases to £81.60 per week. (6.4.11.)

The basic rate of Statutory Maternity, Adoption, Paternity Pay increases to £128.73. (3.4.11)

Only 1% of Employees Bring a Claim to an Employment Tribunals

There has been much talk of a claims culture and businesses being overrun with employment tribunal claims. To some degree the media created picture is misleading in that the figures being used (236,100 claims in 2009-10) include a number of large scale class actions which artificially inflate the figures. In addition these figures arose in a recessionary climate.

However even using the figures published by the tribunal service as they stand they reveal that less than 1% of the working population brought a claim against their employer in 2009-10. So while the number of claims as a free standing figure may be high, it is the case that statistically very few of the 29, 000, 000 employees working in the economy actually brought a claim against their employer last year.

Nevertheless the government has published a consultation document on reforming access to the employment tribunal system; “Resolving Workplace Disputes: A Consultation”. The proposed changes are based on the belief that more needs to be done to support and encourage parties to resolve disputes earlier, and to try and preserve the working relationship between employer and employee. But where the relationship is broken to enable the parties to bring matters to a close in the quickest and least painful way.

One of the proposed changes most publicised is that the service qualification for claiming unfair dismissal may be increased to 2 years. This has been welcomed by employer organisations. However on the government's own assessment this will at best reduce the number of claims by 4,700 per year and so will not have a particularly significant impact on the figures.

It may be that such changes are being mooted for reasons of political capital rather than for assisting in a drive for growth and freeing up employers from regulation.

There has been a number of attempts in the past at making the tribunal system more efficient and seeking to reduce the number of claims registered at tribunal. The most recent such attempt being the introduction of the statutory disputes procedure which seemed to have the opposite effect. So it remains to be seen as to whether the proposed changes published by the government will have the desired impact if they are adopted.