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Date: 09 February 2012

Smallest companies get until 2017 to introduce pension auto-enrollment.

As planned, the pension auto-enrollment comes into effect for the largest organisations from October this year.

However, the timetable for smaller companies has now been pushed back to:

April 2013 and April 2015 for those with 50-249 staff
August and October 2015 for those with 30-49 staff
January 2016 and April 2017 for those with fewer than 30 staff.

This aim of extending the enrollment dates is to help smaller companies absorb the administrative and contribution costs of automatic enrollment against economic uncertainty.

Automatic enrollment will apply to those 22 years and over, below the state pension age and earning in excess £7,475 a year.

Date: 31 January 2012

London Olympics 2012 – Less than 6 months to go!

With the Olympics drawing closer ensure you have prepared and informed your employees of the potential changes it may have on the every day running of your business.

Download our policy and information pack to ensure you are aware of what will be going on around you from the 27th July to 29th August 2012.

Sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest news and helpful tips: ow.ly/8uLtw

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Date: 30 January 2012

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Keep up to date with all the latest HR tips and news by following the team on Twitter.

You will also find a link to sign up to our Newsletter. We hope you will enjoy the new look and find the quick links within the newsletter helpful and informative!

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Date: 30 January 2012

Tribunal Awards Limit Comes into Force on the 1st February 2012.

The notable changes are:

The limit on the amount of a week’s pay for the purposes of calculating, among other things, statutory redundancy payments and the basic award for unfair dismissal will increase from £400 to £430
The maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal goes up from £68,400 to £72,300
Guarantee pay increases from the rate of £22.20 a day to £23.50 a day; and
The minimum basic award in cases where the dismissal was unfair by virtue of health and safety, employee representative, trade union, or occupational pension trustee reasons will increase from £5,000 to £5,300.

Have a look at the DWF’s guide for key payments and limits:

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Date: 03 January 2012

Employment Law Review 2012

A preview of key legislation and employment issues for UK workplaces this year.

It is being touted as the biggest shake-up of employment law for decades. The main proposals cover a number of areas.

- Unfair dismissal
The qualifying period for unfair dismissal will double to two years, with effect from 6 April 2012. There is no mention of any transitional provisions for existing employees. The change is expected to reduce the number of annual unfair dismissal claims by around 2,000. Sceptics anticipate a corresponding increase in discrimination, whistle-blowing and other claims, for which there is no qualifying period.

- Tribunal fees
A consultation by the Ministry of Justice is taking place on the introduction of tribunal fees with a report due in 2012. Reports speculate that people on low incomes will not have to pay a fee to lodge an employment tribunal claim and indicate that sliding scale fees will be introduced in December 2013. Suggestions have been made for a range of fees depending on the type of claims including an issue fee and a hearing fee.

- Fines
Another proposal is fining employers up to £5,000 (on top of damages) if they lose a tribunal case. The fine will be payable to the Exchequer and will be 50 per cent of the tribunal award, subject to a lower limit of £100 and an upper limit of £5,000. Interestingly, the proposed fine would not apply to employees, so it may be perceived as a revenue raising exercise. But it could mean that even more cases are settled rather than going to a full hearing.

- Conciliation
The original proposal was that all employment disputes would be required to go to Acas for pre-tribunal conciliation before proceeding to a tribunal. This proposal has now been modified, so claimants will be required to submit details of their claim initially (on a shorter form) to Acas and will be offered the option of engaging in pre-claim conciliation. There will be no obligation on either party to undertake pre-claim conciliation if they do not wish to.

- Protected conversations
A consultation is expected to take place into ‘protected conversations’. These would allow employers to openly raise issues such as poor performance or retirement plans without the fear that their words will be used against them in a tribunal. The intention here is to encourage employers to have sensible conversations that they should already be having but are afraid to. Presently, it is unclear how this would work or if it will happen.

- Compensated dismissal
The government is proposing to introduce ‘compensated no-fault dismissals’ for micro-businesses (defined as those with 10 or fewer employees by the European union). This would remove the uncertainty of tribunal decisions in terms of liability and compensation and employers would know how much compensation they would be paying. However, the scheme would have to provide sufficient compensation to avoid employers dismissing employees whenever they felt like it.

- Working time
The consultation contains proposals to amend the existing legislation next year. They include:
enabling workers unable to take annual leave during one holiday year to carry unused leave forward to the next holiday year
allowing leave untaken due to absence for maternity, paternity, adoption, and parental leave (and, in due course, leave available under the proposed new flexible parental leave rights) to be carried over into the next leave year
giving employers more flexibility on annual leave.

- Equality Act 2010
The government announced in March 2011, in its Plan for growth, that it considers the current obligation on employers to take reasonable steps to protect their employees from third-party harassment an ‘unworkable requirement’. It intends to consult on the removal of this provision next year. It is unclear what effect this will have on employers and, as European legislation underpins the Equality Act, its removal will not be straightforward.

- In May 2011, it was announced that employment tribunals would be given new powers in 2012 to order employers to conduct and publish a pay audit if they are found to have breached the Equality Act. Sanctions will be imposed for failure to undertake and publish a pay audit. Tribunals will have discretion over whether to order an employer to carry out an audit, especially in the case of small employers with limited resources.

- Pensions
New laws coming into force in October 2012 will require all employers to enrol eligible jobholders automatically into a pension scheme. The initial wave of employers will be able to voluntarily start auto-enrolment as early as July 2012.

Date: 20 December 2011

Severe Weather

With the weather likely to turn over the Christmas period and early next year ensure you make it known to your employees the procedures you have in place for these likely events.

We hope that snow doesn’t affect business but to make sure your employees know what is expected of them ensure you have a Severe Weather Policy to hand.

Bespoke HR have put together a template policy for you to utilise within your business.

Take a look and do not hesitate to contact any of the Bespoke HR team if you have any further queries on the subject.

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Date: 28 November 2011

November News

Take a look at our November Newsletter to get the latest on assessments and testing, Data Protection and a little reminder about Christmas party expectations.

Also look out for next months where we will be announcing changes to the way we send out our newsletter from the new year!

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