HR Articles

City Link was placed into administration on 24 December 2014, resulting in the loss of over 2000 jobs. Employers planning to dismiss between 20 and 99 staff or more staff at one location must notify BIS in writing 30 days in advance. Employers planning to dismiss 100 or more staff at one location must give BIS 45 days' written notice. Failure to notify BIS in this way is a criminal offence, for which the maximum fine is currently £5,000.

Earlier this month we blogged about the National Living Wage ("NLW"), which is expected to come into force in April 2016 for all workers aged 25 and above. Minimum hourly pay for those workers will increase from £6.70 to £7.20 and it's envisaged that the NLW will increase over the coming years to reach a target of £9.00 per hour by 2020.

We reported on the Government's proposal to clamp down on false self employment last year. Since that announcement, the Ministry of Defence was, earlier this year, fined £1m for failing to seek assurance from a number of workers on their tax arrangements. The Department of Health was also fined £470,740 because two of its board members were off-payroll for over a year.

The recent case of MBNA Ltd v Jones demonstrates that differential treatment of employees in misconduct situations will not necessarily amount to an unfair dismissal.

The response this week to the public sector exit payments consultation indicates that powers to introduce the cap will be included in the Enterprise Bill, with the details to be dealt with in subsequent regulations.

On 15 July 2015, the government published the Trade Union Bill 2015-16 and published a Consultation on tackling intimidation of non-striking workers to seek views on proposed reform of the law relating to picketing and protests in order to address intimidation and so-called "leverage tactics" by unions.

As the implementation of the mandatory National Living Wage in April 2016 looms nearer, employers are starting to assess the financial costs of this. However, despite the direct increased costs of salaries within the workforce, a number of benefits for employers may also result.

Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act requiring commercial organisations, with a certain minimum turnover, to prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement for each financial year came into force yesterday, 29 October 2015.

David Cameron has announced this week that Gender Pay Gap reporting will be extended to include the public sector and bonuses.

The Prime Minister has announced this week that private and public sector employers have signed up to recruit graduates on a "name blind" basis.