This month, the plums in our Christmas employment news pudding are: ‘law in a cold climate’ (dealing with severe weather related absence); next year’s statutory payment rates and limits; DH guidance on staff transfers; and an update on the review of the Public Sector Equality Duties. And Stop Press - Government announces reduced collective redundancy consultation period. Sarah Maddock reports.
John Moore reports on two recent decisions which provide useful, practical points on dealing with misconduct dismissals.
What happens if an outsourced contract expires and is brought back in-house to be run as a skeleton service, pending a new contractor being appointed to take over the outsourced contract? Would this amount to a ‘service provision change’ under TUPE, despite the fact that the client had never intended to run the service itself? Sarah Lamont considers this question in the light of a recent decision from the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
Welcome to our November edition of Employment Eye with the latest on employment law developments. In this issue we cover the following topics:
- Political opinion as reason to dismiss
- A mineshaft and a legal minefield: the TUPE ‘one-off event’ exemption
- Employment news round-up, November 2012
In relation to an employee who was dismissed because he was elected a local councilor for the BNP, the European Court of Human Rights has decided that the UK Government has broken the European Convention on Human Rights, because there of the lack of protection under UK law for employees dismissed on the grounds of their political beliefs or affiliation. This case is important for both private and public sector employers; but has a more immediate impact on public sector employers, because of the potential for public sector employees to bring claims under the Human Rights Act. Anne Palmer reports.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has, this month, provided the first precedent setting analysis of the exemption from TUPE for ‘single specific events or tasks of short term duration’. In this case, reported by Alec Bennett, the EAT looked at whether a one-year contract between a coach operator and a school, to transport school children, came within the exemption.
Jodie Sinclair and Laurie Child provide this month’s employment news round-up, including: details of the Government’s new ‘flexible parental leave’ proposals; the latest on the future of the ‘Fair Deal’ pension policy; proposed changes to Agenda for Change contracts; streamlining of dismissal procedures for senior Local Authority executives; and a summary of the new requirements for independent contractors to the NHS.
If you are a public sector body or a supplier to the public sector you are likely to be very familiar with the current EU procurement rules which play a major part in the tendering of public contracts. But are you aware that the EU is in the final stages of negotiations on a new Public Sector Procurement Directive which will radically change the procurement rules which you have probably spent a number of years getting to grips with?
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has revisited the definition of ‘establishment’ in the context of collective consultation over redundancies – can a school be a separate ‘establishment’ or is the correct establishment an education department? This particular case concerned a local authority, but the principles set out by the EAT around the approach to be taken in defining establishments, are of general relevance. Victoria McMeel reports.
This ‘Halloween edition’ of our employment news bulletin is all treat and no tricks, as Mike Smith explains October’s key developments, including: new social media guidelines; some practical points on harassment from the Employment Tribunal; the new ‘shares for rights’ proposals and an update on draft legislation on equal pay audits and equalities.