The Supreme Court has held that an employment tribunal did not fall into an error of law by ordering reinstatement but with the same restriction of duties that applied prior to the Claimant’s dismissal. In McBride v Scottish Police Authority, the Claimant was employed as a fingerprints officer since 1984. In 2000 a group of […]
When does the ACAS Code apply?
The ACAS Code of Practice (COP1) is said to explicitly not apply to redundancy dismissals. Two recent cases have extended the circumstances in which the Code does not apply to include ill-health and some other substantial reason dismissals. The case of Holmes v Qinetiq Ltd [2015] (case reference UKEAT/0206/15/) found that the Code does not […]
Banning the Hijab?
The Advocate General has recently given an opinion that the employer who banned a hijab when in contact with clients acted unlawfully and had committed an act of direct discrimination. The case was a French case brought before the recent issues over dress in France. The employee was a female engineer. She was a practising […]
Latest Tribunal Statistics
The Tribunal statistics for the period April – June 2016 have been released. They show a marginal drop in single claims compared to the same period last year (3%) and that there has been a further increase in multiple claims by 38% for the same period. Over 15,000 claims were issued in that three month […]
Making reasonable adjustments
Under the Equality Act 2010, an employer has a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees. The issue in claims is often whether adjustments were reasonable once the issue of whether they are disabled within the meaning of the Act 2010. In the recent EAT case of G4S Cash Solutions (UK) Ltd v Powell […]
Taxation of termination payments
HMRC has published its draft legislation concerning the proposed changes to the taxation of termination payments. The changes are expected to come into force in April 2018 as consultation on the proposed legislation continues until 5th October 2016. The proposed changes are to make all PILON payments taxable and subject to class 1 NIC’s deductions […]
Gender Pay reporting delayed
Gender pay reporting was supposed to come into force on 1st October 2016. We were expecting draft legislation over the summer. We do however understand that the Government Equalities Office has confirmed that gender pay reporting has been delayed until at least April 2017. We are expecting draft legislation in the Autumn. The proposed measures […]
Discrimination against job applicants
The European Court has heard the first case concerning whether the Equal Treatment Directive applied to an applicant who made an application not because he wanted a role but rather to seek compensation for discrimination. The applicant applied for a trainee position as a graduate when he was neither. His application was rejected at the first round and […]
Rejecting ET claims
The EAT has held in the recent case of Trustees of the William Jones’s School Foundation v Parry that rule 12(1)(b) of the Employment Tribunal Rules might be outside the scope of the primary legislation which made those rules. This is technically known as being “ultra vires”. The Claimant submitted an ET1 just within the limitation period […]
Non-payment of ET Awards
A new scheme for penalising employers who fail to pay tribunal awards or settlement sums came into force on 6 April 2016. Section 150 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 inserted the penalties into part 2A (sections 37A to 37Q) of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996. The Department of Business, Innovation and […]