HR Articles

On 6 April 2020, the law relating to employment contracts changed. It now requires further information to be included in contracts and for this to be given to all employees AND workers no later than day one of work.

You may have seen our previous blog on rolling out vaccination programmes for employees. The debate on whether the workforce should be vaccinated continues at a pace in the press, where we have seen Barchester Healthcare join Pimlico Plumbers in considering all new recruits having to be vaccinated as a requirement of the role.

The UK Home Office has granted more than 2,000 sponsor licences to eligible organisations since July 2020. The total number of licenced sponsors has now increased to 33,000, which allows them to sponsor a worker under either the Skilled Worker or the Intra Company Transfer visa. 

As expected, the Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the decisions of the Employment Tribunal, Employment Appeal Tribunal  and  Court of Appeal that the Uber drivers in this case were workers and not self-employed contractors.  

Mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting could become the norm, as calls for its introduction intensify.  

The case of Allay (UK) Ltd v Gehlen, is a stark warning to employers not to rely on ‘stale’ or ‘ineffective’ equal opportunities and anti-harassment training as a defence to claims of unlawful discrimination. 

On 15 February 2021 HMRC published its policy paper explaining how it intends to help and support organisations which must comply with changes to the off-payroll working rules (IR35).

The IR35 private sector reforms are due to come in on 6 April 2021. If after a status determination statement (SDS), the contractor is found to be employed for tax purposes, then they will have to pay tax and national insurance contributions (NICS) as if they were an ordinary employee.

As COVID-19 infections in the UK fall, businesses in all sectors are looking for as much notice as possible of the Government’s roadmap out of the crisis caused by the pandemic. They want to know when the current lockdown will start to be lifted and what general or sector specific restrictions on operations will remain in place.

The Hong Kong BNO (or British National Overseas) visa route is now officially open. The route is specially aimed at residents of Hong Kong who hold a British National Overseas passport. Importantly the visa allows its holders to live, work and study in the UK.