HR Articles

Following a consultation progress, the government has decided that specific legal protection against caste-based discrimination is not required. It says that it has not been able to identify a legally workable definition of caste and that it would be difficult to differentiate between caste and social class.

In Barclays Bank v Various Claimants, the Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court’s decision that the bank was vicariously liable for the deliberate criminal assaults of a contractor on its employees. The case concerned historical sexual assaults of a doctor (who was an independent contractor of the bank) on female bank employees when conducting medical examinations on behalf of the bank.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has recently found that a belief held by only one person, cannot give rise to an indirect discrimination claim on the ground of philosophical belief. The claimant worked for Mulberry as a Market Support Assistant: a role which gave her access to some of Mulberry’s designs ahead of their launch to market.

Over the last few years, UK’s immigration rules have provided greater flexibility to non-EEA nationals wanting to visit the UK as business visitors. Whilst there is no specific business visit visa, the Standard Visitor visa allows visa nationals to undertake a wide range of business activities including attending non pre-arranged meetings and working in the UK office of their overseas employer (providing they do not deal with clients directly).

In the recent case of Patel v Folkstone Nursing Home Ltd, the Court of Appeal held that an employee had not been dismissed by his employer as his internal appeal against dismissal had been successful; thereby effectively erasing the earlier dismissal. The claimant had been dismissed for gross misconduct for falsifying records and sleeping whilst on duty.

The ICO has announced that Facebook will be fined the maximum possible amount of £500,000 for its breaches of the Data Protection Act in relation to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, an amount that pales in comparison with the new fines introduced under GDPR. We previously blogged on the scandal here.

In Flowers v East of England Ambulance Trust, The Employment Appeal Tribunal has confirmed that voluntary overtime should be included when calculating holiday pay, if it is paid over a sufficient period of time. The ambulance crew members in this case did both mandatory but non-guaranteed overtime (shift over-run) and voluntary overtime, both of which were irregular. However, the voluntary overtime was not included in their holiday pay calculations.

In Ali v Torrosian and others (t/a Bedford Hill Family Practice) the EAT confirmed that when determining a claim for unfavourable treatment arising in consequence of a disability, Tribunals must consider whether the employer’s pursued legitimate aim could be achieved by less discriminatory means. Discrimination arising from disability (“unfavourable treatment”) was a new ground of claim created under the Equality Act 2010.

Immigration rules are to be relaxed by the Home Office today with the introduction of a new ‘UKRI Science, Research and Academia’ scheme which allows non-EEA researchers, scientists and academics to come to the UK for up to 2 years. The new scheme will be added to the Tier 5 (Temporary Worker – Government Authorised Exchange) visa route.

As we have previously blogged, if an employee fails to produce evidence of his right to work in the UK, it will not necessarily be fair for an employer to dismiss on the basis that it would be illegal to continue to employ the employee. However, dismissal in these circumstances can still be fair if the employer has a reasonable and genuinely held belief that it would be illegal to continue to employ them and has followed a fair process.