While the government is busy plugging away at its Red Tape Challenge, the stage is set for yet more reforms aimed at simplifying employment law. At least that's how the venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft would like to see it. His report, published (post-leak) in May puts forward ways of reducing the burden on employers, making it easier for them to take on staff and, ultimately, prosper.
At the same time, a new Bill before Parliament – the Enterprise & Regulatory Reform Bill – gives the government power to substantially reduce maximum compensation for unfair dismissal claims. This is quite separate from the Beecroft report, and we'll come back to it in next month's bulletin.
Here's a selection of highlights from the Beecroft Report:
Compensated no-fault dismissals
Employers should be able to dismiss employees and buy off their unfair dismissal claims with a set payment equivalent to statutory redundancy. Discrimination and some other claims would remain live.
Much of the debate about this has been to do with whether or not making dismissal easier (or 'firing at will' as it's been termed) would actually aid business growth. From a HR perspective, what would it do to workforce stability and morale?
TUPE
Beecroft says that transferring employers should be able to make redundant employees who, on transfer, would immediately be made redundant for a valid economic, technical or organisational reason.
The report suggests that TUPE should not apply to businesses in administration. Also that the service provider provisions of UK law should be replaced with a better way of identifying whether or not a transfer is subject to TUPE.
Discrimination
Do away with the Equality Act's third party harassment provisions and perhaps re-introduce the Default Retirement Age.
Employment law opt outs
Employers with fewer than 10 employees should be allowed to opt out of some employment laws, including unfair dismissal and flexible parental leave.
Tribunal process and awards
The government should introduce many of the changes already in hand (such as a fee for bringing a claim). The report also proposes limiting the future financial loss aspect of compensatory awards to, say, nine months.
Collective consultation
The period of collective consultation should be reduced to 30 days (or five in the case of insolvency) regardless of the number of proposed redundancies.
As the debate surrounding the report continues, it's certainly created a headline or two out of employment law.
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