Announcements from the Government on employment law reform come through thick and fast these days – one a week it seems – and in this week when everyone is considering how many mega-calories they will be consuming over the next seven days, it is collective consultation periods in redundancy programmes that has hit the (employment law) headlines.
From 1st February 2013 an Employment Tribunal will be able to award no more than £74,200 (currently £72,300) by way of a compensatory award in unfair dismissal cases. In discrimination and whistleblowing cases there is no cap on the maximum amount of the award.
The maximum amount of a week’s pay, used to calculate the statutory redundancy payment and also the Basic and Additional Awards will also increase from £430 to £450 per week.
In my last blog I wrote that the business lobby was unlikely to be impressed by the Government’s reforms of employment law. Then today I came across a report in Xpert HR, the online HR website and journal, stating that 62% of members of the Institute of Directors (IoD) believe that the government has been “ineffective” in its attempts to “simplify” employment law. Coincidentally another survey, this time on behalf of Brook Street was also published, in which only 9% of those polled thought UK employment law was “fit for purpose”.
Last week the Government finally produced its response to the consultation on fees in the Employment Tribunal. The full response, all 86 pages of it is available via the press release. In a controversial move, fees for commencing a claim and then taking it all the way to a final hearing will be introduced from the summer of 2013.
The rationale is to make Tribunal users contribute to the cost of the system they use,
It was today announced that the Coalition Government, following consultation with the Institute of Directors has decided to consult on a new means of resolving workplace disputes,
The scheme has been trialled in the United States where it has proved to be instrumental in reducing the amount of employment related litigation. It is said to be the most successful method of Alternative Dispute Resolution ever seen and both David Cameron and George Osborne are known to be giving it careful consideration. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, was not available for comment.
Amidst all the hullabaloo over the government’s plans to reform employment law, one issue that hasn’t got as much of an airing as it might deserve is over mediation/conciliation. In the Law Society Gazette yesterday an article stated that the government intends to promote mediation in the workplace.
Apparently less than 50% of employer respondents to the government’s recent “Resolving Workplace Disputes” had used mediation to resolve disputes, which is a number I find surprisingly high in fact. The more interesting question though is at what stage did they use it? I would guess that for many businesses mediation is only used when the lawyers suggest it as a means of settling a dispute and avoiding a trial.
Sorry Guys, Not Under This Government
There have been many excellent blogs, articles and podcasts on the government’s proposals for the “most radical reform to the employment law system for decades” contained in its “Resolving Workplace Disputes: Government Response to the Consultation” Here is my regrettably belated contribution to the debate.
The full review can be read by clicking the link, but if you don’t want to wade through all 55 pages of the report, here are the headlines. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary also added in some further proposals in a later speech.
Last week the government announced various plans for reforming employment law. I’ll be writing about them shortly…
I wonder if the employee above has just been made aware of his “Compensated No Fault Dismissal” package?
Back in the middle of the last decade there were a number of cases involving agency workers (Dacas, James v Greenwich) etc that tried to deal with the gaping chasm suffered by temporary workers who had a contract with the agency but were working with the end user. If the end user terminated their employment (say for reason of redundancy) the worker couldn’t bring a claim for unfair dismissal against either the end user (because they weren’t employed by them) or against the agency (because they didn’t make the decision). The Courts tried to be creative and imply a contract between the worker and the end user but it was not satisfactory. The plight of agency workers came to the fore and led to negotiations between government, the unions and business, leading to these Regs, which are only in force thanks to Europe. They aim to make life fairer for agency workers in the workplace.
It’s here again, the second of the two days in the year when the government introduces new legislation and regulation and increases rates and allowances. Instead we could have been in Munich having some real fun.
Saturday saw the introduction of the long-awaited (and feared) Agency Workers Regulations. Opinion on them varies between them being a fundamental step in ensuring fairness in the workplace to one of the greatest threats to the UK’s reputation as being a friendly place for businesses to do, well, business. More on this in a later blog post, but here is the BBC’s report on it.