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 […]
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National Minimum Wage v Living Wage
It is worth noting that the new national living wage is in fact a new tier of the national minimum wage for the over 25’s. This is not be confused with the living wage which is voluntary and concerns the basic cost of living. The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills has issued guidance on […]
Discriminatory job adverts
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (ECHR) has published a number of useful items for employers to consider before advertising for positions. The first is guidance concerning advertising and what equality means for advertisers and publishers which you can read here. There is also a best practice checklist and a frequently asked questions document about […]
New maximum compensatory award
As the Excello Law data card goes to print and before I mail these out to clients’ a reminder that the limit on the week’s pay will increase from 6th April 2016 to £479 from the current limit of £475. This means that the maximum basic award will increase from £14,250 to £14,370 and the […]
Employment Tribunal postponements
Notwithstanding the lack of a positive response to consultation on the subject the Government has confirmed that it will press ahead with plans to introduce amendments to the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules concerning postponement applications. The amendments to the rules will be that (save in exceptional circumstances): limit the number of postponements to hearings that […]
Childcare vouchers during maternity leave
Childcare vouchers during maternity leave, which were provided through salary sacrifice, would be suspended during maternity leave. Donaldson wished to join the childcare vouchers scheme but refused to join on these terms as she believed that it was discriminatory. She brought a claim instead in the Tribunal that her employer had discriminated against her on […]
Can a lay-off only be for a reasonable period?
The EAT held in the recent case of Craig v Bob Lindfield & Sons that there is no implied term as to reasonableness so far as the length of lay off was concerned but also went onto find in this case that the period of four-week’s experienced by Mr Craig was not unreasonable in all […]
Tax treatment of termination payments
Following my Tweet on the day of the Budget from April 2018, termination payments that are subject to income tax on amounts in excess of £30,000 will be subject to employer national insurance contributions. The £30,000 exemption will remain and that the whole termination payment will be outside the scope of employee NICs. In addition, […]
Unison’s ET fee challenge
At the end of February 2016, the Supreme Court granted permission to Unison to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision on Employment Tribunal fees. The Court of appeal rejected Unison’s judicial review of the employment tribunal fee regime and the Supreme Court will now revisit this. No date has been set and it is not […]
Gender Pay Reporting
The Government has published its draft regulations entitled The Equality Act (gender pay gap information) Regulations 2016 which are intended to come into force in October 2016. Consultation closed on 11 March 2016 on the draft regulations. The regulations are intended to implement the mandatory gender pay gap reporting duty under section 78 of the […]
(Our news section brings you the latest news on published judgments and cases which are all in the public domain. We only comment on these published cases and not cases of our actual clients. Publication of the case or comments is a public service designed to make the courts and tribunals more accessible and ensures justice is seen to be done. This is why court and tribunal judgments are published publicly.)