Mediation in the workplace is being formally promoted by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS), initially amongst designated industries to finalise best practise.

BIS have also issued a tender, for providers of workplace mediation training. Employers are expected to have trained members of their staff who can undertake mediation in workplace disputes to resolve them before they lead to insurmountable differences and employment tribunal claims.

Compromise Agreements 

Following consultation and concerns expressed, in particular by small firms about the cost of using compromise agreements, BIS are aiming to produce a ‘model agreement’ and renaming them as ‘settlement agreements’.  This is scheduled to be introduced as soon as parliament is able to approve the amendments.

As of 6^th April 2012 section 147 of the Equality Act 2010 makes clear that compromise agreements can be validly used  in respect of discrimination claims.

BIS is currently focussing on :-

• rapid resolution of employment disputes in the workplace  (mediation, compromise agreements)
• ‘grown up’ protected conversations in the workplace, the contents of which cannot be revealed in an employment tribunal
• charging fees to bring a claim at an employment and appeal tribunal
• financial penalties for employers for breaching employment rights ( payable to the exchequer)
• streamlining TUPE in line with EU practise not simply the letter of the law

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This amends the composition of employment tribunal hearings for unfair dismissal cases to be heard before ‘a judge sitting alone’.

Parties will still be able to request a panel of three members (as currently) but this request will be accepted or rejected at the judge’s discretion. This simplification is only applicable to unfair dismissal cases.

Amendments to Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2004 

These amendments, aimed at deterring unwarranted claims by employees or defences by employers are as follows:

• Where a judge considers that a claim has a limited chance of success at an employment tribunal, the maximum limit at which deposit orders can be made (prior to the case proceeding) is increased from £500 to £1,000.
• The maximum limit at which judges can award costs to either party is increased from £10,000 to £20,000.
• Where currently witness statements are read out aloud by witnesses in the employment tribunal hearing, thereby leading to longer duration of cases and costs, they will now be ’taken as read’ i.e. as they have been exchanged prior to the hearing, it will be assumed that the parties are familiar with them. However, a judge still has discretion to ask for them to be read out aloud if deemed necessary.
• Automatic witness expenses will no longer paid.

The number of workers fatally injured during the financial year was 171, and corresponds to a rate of fatal injury of 0.6 per 100 000 workers.   This is down 17% than the average figures for the last 5 years.  Compared with other EU countries, the UK statistics are one of the lowest.

The most “dangerous” industry was Agriculture (34 fatalities) providing a rate of 8.0 deaths per 100,000 workers.  Construction was next with 50 fatalities (2.4 deaths per 100,000 workers), followed by Manufacturing and the Services sectors.

Compensation Awarded by Employment Tribunals

Currently large shops can only open for six hours on a Sunday.

Chancellor, George Osborne, said:

We’ve got the whole world coming to London and the rest of the country for the Olympics.

It would be a great shame – particularly when some of the big Olympic events are on Sunday – if the country had a closed for business sign on it.

Under the 2006 Regulations asbestos work was categorised into “licenced” and “non licenced”, with higher risk activities only being permitted by licenced operators.  Being lower risk, non licenced works were exempt from some requirements, e.g. relating to formal notifications, record keeping and a duty to provide medical surveillance -  the 2012 Regulations aim to reduce these exemptions in line with the EC Directive.

In real terms the changes are fairly small and should not cause undue concern for responsible employers who are already managing asbestos properly.

The Compliance Group ensure our clients are compliant with asbestos related duties of care.  Competent consultants can undertake visual inspections of suspect materials and advise on best practice and remedial action.  We also arrange asbestos surveys on behalf of clients and support by devising bespoke asbestos management plans – it is not sufficient to simply have a survey. If asbestos containing materials are confirmed on site then employers must devise and implement a suitable asbestos management plan in addition to their survey/asbestos register.

One of the key recommendations made by Lord Young was an overhaul of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR). Under RIDDOR, there is a statutory requirement for the Employer to report certain specified workplace injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences to a central Incident Centre.  Fatalities, specified injuries, diseases and occurrences must be reported but also up to now any injury which prevents a person from working or carrying out their normal work tasks for more than 3 days.  Lord Young recommended that this 3 day trigger point was over burdensome on employers as it accounted for the majority of RIDDOR reports and was a prime example of over the top red tape.

On 6 April 2012, the recommendation came into law and 3 day trigger point under RIDDOR was increased to 7 days.  This also has the uniformity of matching the 7 day period after which an employer should obtain a medical certificate from an absent employee.  HSE predictions are that this change will cut RIDDOR paper-work by at least third.

The Compliance Group work with all our clients to ensure that RIDDOR duties are met in full, without having an adverse impact on health and safety performance.  Reporting an incident is a legal duty (failure to report a RIDDOR incident is a £5,000 fine) but it also demonstrates clear commitment to implement health and safety correctly within an organisation.  There’s no point burying your head in the sand!

RIDDOR submissions should be kept factual, concise and objective so as not to prejudice any subsequent legal process (e.g. personal injury claim or Inspector Enforcement Action). Again, The Compliance Group offer competent advice throughout the process so clients know they have fulfilled their duty giving peace of mind, but also minimising any subsequent exposure or liability at the same time.

Using RTI employers will tell HMRC about PAYE payments at the time they are made as part of their payroll process, so information will be submitted throughout the year rather than at year end as it is currently done. Information submitted will include, Hours worked, Gross pay, Tax, NI and Student Loan deductions, Statutory Payments, Other deductions and Net pay.

Employers will be moved across to the new system between April 2013 and October 2013, HMRC will inform employers of when their business will make this move.

Note that RTI only affects the submission of information – PAYE payment arrangements remain unchanged.

Before making the move to RTI we will need to check that the payroll data held is correct and in the right format for RTI purposes.

Either as part of the first RTI transmission or as a separate exercise for larger employers HMRC will go through a process called Employer Alignment. We will submit a file to HMRC for them to verify the data against their records. The most important items will be Name, National Insurance Number and Date of Birth.

As of 6^th April 2012, employees will now need two years service with an organisation before they can bring a claim for unfair dismissal at an employment tribunal.

However this only applies to employees who begin their employment on or after 6^th April 2012.

It has been estimated that the introduction of this change will reduce unfair dismissal claims by around 2,000 per year across the UK. In 2010/2011, there were 47,900 unfair dismissal claims to Employment Tribunals.

Implementation will be introduced gradually between October 2012 and October 2016 based on the size of employer.

There will be a three month waiting time before employers have to opt employees in during which time the employee can decide to opt in if they want to.

Once enrolled employees will have the option to opt-out, and receive a refund of any contributions deducted, but will re-enrol every three years.

For employers the new legislation means that they will have to audit their current pension provision to ensure that they have qualifying schemes and establish eligible jobholders who must be auto- enrolled. Eligible job holders are aged between 22 and state pension age and are paid above the income tax personal allowance (2012/13 tax year £8,105).

If employers do not already have a qualifying scheme they can choose the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) which has been set up specifically for the introduction of the new legislation.