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Welcome to our new e-Bulletin. We hope you have found our newsletters useful over the last twelve months and look forward to bringing you our usual HR information snippets during the coming year. New Year is a time for change; take a look at our new website – www.crispinrhodes.co.uk - launched today and also our revamped e-Bulletin.
We’ve had some excellent feedback on the content of our previous newsletters so we’ll continue with similar information, but we are also introducing a series of manager guides to HR related topics which we hope you will find useful, including a Desktop Guide to HR.
As ever, your feedback is always appreciated so please do let us know if there’s anything else you would like to see in our e-Bulletin.
Kind regards,
Angela
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A Round Up of 2009
Last year saw many more changes to employment legislation, some of which are particularly challenging for small to medium sized businesses but there has been some good news. We take a look back at some of the highlights.....
Holidays
The end of the year is a time when many employees have holiday that needs to be used up. The Working Time Regulations (WTR) clearly provide that a worker who has not taken their full statutory holiday entitlement during the holiday year cannot carry forward any of the first 28 days of holiday not taken, nor can they be paid in lieu of holiday not taken unless they are leaving the company.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has made three very high-profile decisions regarding holidays and sickness absence, the key points of which are:
- Stringer V HMRC – the ECJ confirmed that workers who are off sick continue to accrue paid holiday entitlement and may take and be paid for this leave whilst they are off sick. If they have not taken this leave whilst off sick, they must be allowed to take it when the return to work or be paid in lieu of it if their employment is terminated, even if they were off sick for more than one holiday year.
- Schultz-Hoff v Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund - where a worker has been prevented from taking their annual holiday as they were off sick, they must be allowed to take that holiday when they return to work in the next holiday year or receive payment in lieu if their employment is terminated.
- Pereda v Madrid Movilidad SA – if a worker is sick during a period of annual holiday, they have the right to reschedule their holiday at a later date and, if necessary, to roll over that holiday to the following year.
These three cases leave more questions unanswered than answered and we are left waiting to see what will happen. What is sure though is that employers should be taking steps to manage sickness absence robustly to avoid holiday entitlement building up in long term sickness cases.
Discrimination
Age - Heyday, the membership organisation who were supported by Age Concern, challenged the Government through the courts on the default retirement age of 65. This was finally rejected by the High Court which is good news for employers in that they can continue to lawfully require employees to retire at 65 provided they follow the statutory process. However, the Government announced that it is bringing forward it review of the default retirement age to 2010.
Disability – In Coleman v Attridge Law, Ms Coleman claimed that she was harassed and discriminated against by her employer when it refused to agree to her request for flexible working on the grounds of her son’s disability. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) prevents discrimination “against a disabled person” and harassment relating “to the disabled person’s disability”. It does not specifically protect individuals from discrimination or harassment who are not themselves disabled but are associated with a disabled person. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) introduced new wording which makes it clear that it is sufficient that disability is the reason for the treatment and that the disability may be that of the claimant or some other person.
Religion or Belief – In the case of Grainger plc v Nicholson, Mr Nicholson alleged that he had been made redundant because of his belief in man-made climate change. The EAT agreed with him that a belief that “man is heading towards catastrophic climate change” and that we are under a moral obligation to do something about it can be protected under the Religion or Belief Regulations. This is only a preliminary ruling and Mr Nicholson has still to establish in a tribunal that his belief was the reason for his dismissal but it does show that this type of belief is capable of being protected. Employers should be aware that employees who hold less mainstream beliefs could be legally protected.
Sex – Our courts have confirmed that any employee who undergoes failed In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment does fall within the bounds of the protection offered under the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA). The employee is protected against discrimination from the date the eggs are implanted until two weeks after she learns that the implantation failed. Suffering a detriment due to undergoing IVF treatment also falls within the protection of the SDA.
Injury to Feelings
In Da’Bell v NSPCC, the EAT increased the amount that tribunals must award for injury to feelings in discrimination cases. As a result of the EAT’s judgment in this case, the guidelines on the appropriate level of damages for injury to feelings have been increased as follows:
- Lower band: £5,000 to increase to £6,000 – cases of one off or low-level incidents of discrimination or harassment.
- Middle band: £15,000 to £18,000 – cases of more severe acts of discrimination or harassment, or for acts extending over a longer period of time.
- Upper band: £25,000 to increase to £30,000 – cases where there is evidence of a sustained campaign of deliberate discrimination.
Disciplinary Hearings
2009 saw the repeal of the statutory dismissal, disciplinary and grievance procedures which was good news for most employers. These were replaced by the ACAS Code of Practice which gives tribunals discretion to increase or reduce awards by up to 25% for unreasonable failure to follow the Code. To see the ACAS Code of Practice click here
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U-Turn on Childcare Vouchers
The Government announced that tax relief would be cut on childcare vouchers which resulted in a public and Labour back-bench revolt. Gordon Brown has now confirmed in a letter to his back-benchers, that the childcare voucher scheme will continue for the time-being and existing users of the scheme will continue to receive their tax exemptions.
However from 2011, all new entrants to the scheme will only get basic tax relief of 20% even if they are higher rate tax payers, and the scheme will be scrapped entirely for all users by 2015.
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Serial Litigant Database
A new website has gone live offering employers the opportunity to discover whether claimants have previously won or lost any employment tribunal cases for a flat fee of £99 plus VAT.
Visit www.serial-litigants.com to find out more
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Compensation & Statutory Pay Changes
The Employment Rights (Revision of Limits) Order 2009, which sets out the revised tribunal compensation limits applicable from 1st February, 2010 have been published.
For the first time ever, the annual review of compensation limits has resulted in a reduction to the maximum compensatory award limit. The maximum compensatory award drops from £66,200 to £65,300. This reflects the decrease of 1.4%
A week’s pay for basic award and redundancy pay purposes will remain the same at £380.
Statutory maternity, paternity and adoption pay will increase from £123.06 to £124.88 per week from April 2010 and the weekly earnings threshold for these payments will rise from £95 to £97.
Statutory sick pay remains unaffected at £79.15 per week.
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New Online HR Resource
Following feedback from our clients, we're proud to unveil our new look website this month. It's packed with HR information, guides, and downloads - all of which are available completely free of charge!
Visit www.crispinrhodes.co.uk to take a look.
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Your Desktop Guide to HR - Free!
With so many minefields to avoid when employing people, we've introduced a guide to common HR obligations which you can download to your PC.
Once you've registered your copy we'll send you free updates as the law changes, giving you up-to-date HR information right at your fingertips!
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Your Questions Answered
Q: With the freezing winter weather set to continue into January, many employees may find it difficult to get into work. What steps can be taken to ensure that staff don’t treat a bit of snow as an excuse for a day off work?
A: Over recent weeks we have seen some of the most prolonged wintry weather conditions in years. This has resulted in difficulties for employees getting to work and many are worrying about what will happen to their pay when through no fault of their own they cannot get to work.
Even a slight spattering of snow can make attendance at work turn erratic, with some opting out on the sight of a few snowflakes. There are a few things that can be done to ensure that employees know their responsibilities when it comes to getting to work in bad weather.
It is very much the employee’s responsibility that they turn up for work, if they don’t turn up, they don’t get paid. However, if weather conditions make it dangerous to get into work, you cannot expect employees to risk their safety to get into work. If the weather makes coming into work impossible, consider introducing a formal call-in procedure for those who know they are going to be late.
We recommend that you have an adverse weather policy to clearly outline employee’s responsibilities and make sure that your employees are aware of the policy to be applied . Typically, such a policy will confirm that in the event of adverse weather conditions, employees are expected to try to find an alternative mode of transport to ensure they are able to attend work and carry out their duties as normal. It should be made clear that normal absence procedures such as notifying line managers by a set time should also be observed.
Whether payment should be made to employees is purely down to you, the employer. There is no statutory obligation to pay an employee if they are unable to attend work. However, employers may wish to consider offering different options to employees such as:
- Homeworking – may be possible for those who purely need internet access and a computer for their duties.
- Annual leave – you could suggest they take annual leave.
- Unpaid leave – you could suggest they take unpaid leave.
- Flexi-time – staff could make up time lost from not coming into work, but this needs to be monitored carefully.
Always be mindful of the employee’s contract just in case you have a contractual obligation to pay employees who do not turn up for work.
We recommend that you utilise your return to work procedures in each case as this is still absence and you need to establish with a certain degree of accuracy exactly why your employee could not make it in.
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In Closing
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With the somewhat stormy 2009 now behind us, I hope its not too much of a cliche to wish you all the best for 2010.
As always, I love to receive your feedback and I'd be especially grateful if you could let me know what you think of our new e-Bulletin layout, our new website and our new Desktop Guide to HR. You can drop me an email via angela@crispinrhodes.co.uk or give me a call directly on 01908 576991.
Lastly, please could I ask you to use the link below to forward this email onto anyone you think would benefit from keeping abreast of the latest changes to HR law? (And if you've been forwarded this email, you can subscribe to receive it every month by emailing or visiting our website)
Thank you once again, and for now I wish you all the best.
Kind regards,
Angela Rhodes
Crispin Rhodes Ltd
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Tel 01908 576991 - Fax 01908 607533 - Free HR Resources - Newsletter Archive - Contact Us
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Crispin Rhodes Ltd, 4 Aldrich Drive, Willen, Milton Keynes, MK15 9JH - VAT Reg No: 690381621
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Crispin Rhodes Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 3336715
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