A summer of change for employment law?

Government reforms start to take effect

We have already seen an increase in parental leave from 13 to 18 weeks, and the compulsory auto-enrolment of employees into employers' pension schemes continues to roll out to smaller employers.  On top of that there is a long list of further changes anticipated:

From 25th June

Dismissal for political opinions or affiliation - an employee no longer needs to have any qualifying period of service to be able to claim unfair dismissal where the reason for dismissal is their political opinions or affiliation.

Whistleblowing - employees can no longer rely on the protection of whistleblowing legislation unless their disclosure is made in the public interest.  This should put a stop to the use of whistleblowing to support unfair dismissal claims where the "disclosure" is related to the employee's own contract or something which only affects them individually.

From 29th July

Tribunal fees - claimants will only be able to submit a tribunal claim if they pay a fee at the same time.  Fees will be £160 for more basic claims (e.g. for unpaid wages) and £250 for other claims (e.g. unfair dismissal or discrimination).  They will also need to pay a further fee (£230 or £950) if the claim proceeds to a full hearing.  There is a process for remission of fees in some circumstances, where the claimant is a very low earner.

Tribunal process - the claim form and the employer's response form will both be subject to scrutiny by the tribunal on receipt, and either may be struck out where the tribunal believe the claim or response to be without merit.  It will be even more important now that employers take advice before submitting a response to a claim.

Later in the Summer (dates to be confirmed)

There are a number of other measures to follow, including the legal protection of conversations with employees during employment to promote a severance agreement; renaming of compromise agreements to settlement agreements; a cap on unfair dismissal compensation payments of 12 months' pay; the new employee shareholder status which is expected from 1st September (reported in last month's newsletter); and changes to TUPE (the legislation protecting employees when an undertaking is transferred between employers).