Employment Eye: February 2013

Welcome to the February 2013 edition of Employment Eye. In this issue we cover the following topics:

The inside track on the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry: 5 questions for Bevan Brittan’s adviser to the CQC

In a follow-up to our alert on the report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Inquiry, Julian Hoskins discusses the practical impact of the report on workforce issues, in a Q&A with Carlton Sadler - the Bevan Brittan Senior Associate who led the team advising one of the core participants in the Inquiry, the Care Quality Commission. The publication of the Mid Staffordshire Inquiry report on 6 February 2013 heralded the conclusion of possibly the largest ever public inquiry into the regulation of healthcare in this country - and its conclusions and recommendations are relevant for all those dealing with workforce issues in the health and social care sector. 

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Young, gifted and broke: age-related redundancy payments

In Lockwood v Department of Work and Pensions, the Employment Appeal Tribunal has confirmed that an enhanced redundancy payment for older workers did not amount to direct age discrimination, when objectively justified by a strong social policy objective.  In this case, the strong social policy objective was the provision of a 'financial cushion' for older workers that reflected the extra difficulties they experienced after losing their jobs.  George Pennington explains more.

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Employment news round-up, February 2013

This month’s news round-up is brought to you by Alastair Currie and includes the latest news on: TUPE (whether it is ‘static’ or ‘dynamic’); whistleblowing; changes to unfair dismissal as a result of the recent BNP case on politically motivated dismissals; details of new guidance following the recent Eweida case on religious discrimination; and details of new developments on collective redundancy, family friendly rights and settlement agreements.

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