Employment and HR

• Age Discrimination - Be Prepared

• There are currently 20 million people aged 50 and over in the UK and the figure is expected to reach 27 million by 2030. On 1 October 2006, the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations came into effect. This legislation makes it unlawful to discriminate on...

• Can We Stop Them

• Restrictive covenants (clauses which are normally found in contracts of employment and partnership agreements, which restrict the right of a person to compete with his or her firm) have always been a difficult area of law. The courts are able to strike...

• Changes to Family Friendly Legislation

• The Work and Families Act introduces measures intended to give more choice to families attempting to balance work and caring responsibilities. It imposes significant new obligations on employers. The period of statutory maternity pay has been...

• Changes to Statutory Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures

• The Government is keen to promote alternative ways of settling workplace disputes. Since October 2004, employers and employees have been required to follow statutory minimum procedures to make sure that disputes are discussed at work. Not only has this...

• Compromise Agreements - Tax Position Clarified

• A compromise agreement is an agreement made between an employer and an employee who is having their contract of employment terminated. It sets out the terms under which the termination will take place and contains a provision that the employee will receive a...

• Employee Fraud

• Fraud is estimated to cost the UK economy between 13billion and 16billion a year and fraud by employees accounts for 60 per cent of all frauds committed against businesses. In a study by Leicester University, over seventy per cent of employees admitted they...

• False Claims on a CV - What to Do

• According to research by the Risk Advisory Group, more than half of CVs submitted by job applicants contain lies or inaccuracies. These range from gaps in employment history to false claims regarding qualifications and failure to mention fraud committed...

• Fuel Rates Down

• HMRC announced on 29 Jan that the rates payable for car fuel (where a mileage rate is paid to company car users for business travel) was to be reduced from 1 February 2007. The mileage rates are payable when an employee uses a company car for...

• Immigration and the Points-Based System

• Under the Points Based System (PBS) for immigration most people applying to come to or remain in the UK to work or study who are not nationals of the European Economic Area (EEA) or Swiss nationals will require a certificate of sponsorship from a licensed...

• In Brief: ACAS E-learning Guides

• The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) now has ten electronic learning guides available on its website. The topics are bullying and harassment; managing absence in the workplace; handling redundancy; discipline and...

• Pension Scheme Deficits Action Plan

• In accordance with the Pensions Act 2004 all defined benefit schemes must have regular actuarial valuations to ensure that the scheme meets the Statutory Funding Objective (SFO). To ensure SFO compliance, the scheme trustees and managers must...

• Pension Schemes and Age Discrimination

• The parts of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 that apply to pension schemes came into force on 1 December 2006. The Regulations prohibit age-related discrimination and harassment, allowing discriminatory treatment only when it can be...

• Recruitment - Preventing Illegal Working Without Discrimination

• Hardly a day goes by without there being some mention of illegal immigration in the news. The number of people discovered working here unlawfully has risen sharply in recent years. There has been much talk of the possible introduction of a national...

• Statutory Maternity, Adoption and Paternity Pay Rates

• The standard weekly rate of Statutory Maternity Pay, Statutory Adoption Pay and Statutory Paternity Pay increased from 112.75 to 117.18 from 6 April 2008. The daily rate is therefore 16.74 exactly. From 6...

• Tackling Work-Related Stress

• Research commissioned by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) indicates that about half a million people in the UK experience work-related stress at a level they believe is affecting their health. In addition, up to five million people feel very or ...

• The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006

• Owners and managers of commercial premises, employers whose workers use, install, remove, maintain or demolish premises that may contain asbestos and businesses providing construction or building services are all affected by the Control of Asbestos...

• Unfair Dismissal and Illegality

• It is an established principle of law that illegal contracts are unenforceable. In a recent case, the Sheffield Employment Tribunal (ET) refused to allow a claim for unfair dismissal brought by a woman who had been employed for three years as a chef in a Thai...

• When Overtime Can Mean More Pension Entitlement

• Employers who are relying on the fact that overtime is not taken into account when assessing the pension entitlement of their employees should check the implications of a recent Court of Appeal case. The case involved a caretaker employed by Newham Borough...