Spring employment law changes

Regulations, statutory amendments, and case law continue to push forward developments in employment law
Compensation rates rise, first shared parental leave babies are born, and ‘vaping’ reaches the tribunal system
Tribunal awards

New tribunal compensation limits have been announced. The capped award for unfair dismissal increases from £76,574 to £78,335; the maximum basic award for unfair dismissal and statutory redundancy pay rises from £13,920 to £14, 250; and the limit on a week’s pay (used for calculating basic awards for redundancy and unfair dismissal) rises from £464 to £475. The new rates apply from 6 April 2015. Rate increases for statutory maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental pay apply from 5 April 2015.

The Low Pay Commission, the body that advises the government on setting the National Minimum Wage, has released its suggested increases for this year. If the recommendations are accepted by the government the rate for workers aged 21 and over will rise by 3 per cent to £6.70 an hour; the rate for workers aged 18-20 will increase by 3.3 per cent to £5.30; workers aged 16-17 will see a rise of 2.2 per cent to £3.87; and apprentices’ minimums go up by 2.6 per cent to £2.80. Confirmation of the new rates may be in this month’s Budget and, if approved, the increases will take effect from 1 October 2015.

New regulations for the National Minimum Wage are in force from 6 April. The regulations consolidate 20 amendments that have been made since the minimum wage was first introduced and don’t represent any changes in policy.
Family leave

The pivotal ‘due date’ for the shared parental leave rules is 5 April 2015, which means the parents of babies born in the next weeks will be the first to benefit from the new arrangements, provided both parents qualify. The government says around 285,000 couples are expected to be eligible, but the government predicts a take-up of only 5,700 couples in the scheme’s first year.

Law firm Irwin Mitchell believes these estimates are too low. In a survey which it carried out of 2,000 working couples, it found that 66 per cent of male respondents said they would like to be their baby’s main carer in its first year, and sixty-one per cent said this would be the case even if it had a detrimental effect on their career. More than a third of men said sharing the leave and pay was the best option for them as their partners were on higher salaries.

Employment partner Glenn Hayes commented, “These figures may take businesses by surprise. The shared parental leave rules are designed to encourage more dads to play an active role in the upbringing of their children, but the financial situation in the home will be the greatest influence on who takes it up. Many businesses have been slow to prepare themselves for this important change and in doing so have left themselves open to the risk of mishandling requests and inviting claims for discrimination.”

Statutory paternity leave is unchanged by the new shared parental leave rules. The Labour party has recently pledged to double its current length from two weeks to four, and raise the statutory paternity pay rate by £100 to £260 a week, if it forms the next government. Law firm Norton Rose Fulbright’s head of employment practice Paul Griffin said that as this new rate would only reflect the national minimum wage, “it may not be that attractive”. He said that in a survey his firm conducted last year on shared parental leave, the key stumbling blocks were low pay levels during leave and “entrenched cultural resistance to men taking an active role in childcare. Eighty-nine per cent of respondents among employers predicted a low level of take-up. These new proposals in the same vein may, therefore, have limited impact.”

The advent of the shared parental leave rules has put the increase in parental leave next month in the shade. From 5 April 2015parents can take parental leave (which is unpaid) up to their child’s 18th birthday – previously it was only available until the child was five years old. Parents can take a maximum of four weeks in any one year.
Criminal records
On 10 March Section 56 of the Data Protection Act 1998 is in force (delayed from its predicted implementation date of December 2014). The provision makes it a criminal offence to require someone, perhaps a job applicant, to access and provide information on their criminal record. Employers have been known to make it a condition of employment. The practice is referred to as ‘enforced subject access’, and the Information Commissioner’s Office has now produced guidance on how the prohibition operates.
Case law

Two recent cases have broken new ground in employment terms. In the case Rubins v Latvia, the European Court of Human Rights decided that dismissing an employee for sending emails criticising management was an unjustified interference with the employee’s right to freedom of expression. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published new legal guidance, prompted by the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris, on freedom of expression to help address “muddle and misunderstanding” over rights in this area.

In the UK, an employment tribunal has heard the first case involving ‘vaping’, the term describing the use of e-cigarettes. It decided a catering company’s decision to discipline a catering assistant for vaping on school premises, in full view of pupils, was reasonable, but the tribunal raised a ‘point of concern’ over the school’s no-smoking policy neglecting to include e-cigarettes.