The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills recently unveiled a number of proposals to reform employment law. These include plans to:
- Introduce a cap of 12 months' pay on the compensatory award for unfair dismissal, alongside the current cap of £72,300 with effect from April 2013. Claimants would be entitled to maximum compensation of the smaller of the two sums.
- Reform the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employments) Regulations 2006 (TUPE). This remains subject to further consultation but includes removal of the concept of a "service provision change". It remains to be seen what, if anything, will replace this, or whether we will go back to the position pre-2006 when there was much confusion over whether TUPE applied to an outsourcing. Kemp Little is assisting the National Outsourcing Association ("NOA") to put together a response to the consultation paper on behalf of NOA's members and other interested parties. If you are interested in contributing to the response, please complete the short online survey below which will help to identify key issues and the impact of the proposals. The short 3 minute survey can be completed here. Please pass this survey on to your colleagues to help us seek as many views on the potential TUPE changes as possible.
- Make settlement offers inadmissible as evidence to an employment tribunal in any subsequent unfair dismissal claim. This is contained in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill which the government expects to receive Royal Assent in spring 2013.
- Tackle long-term workplace sickness absence by establishing a health and work assessment and advisory service to provide a state-funded assessment by occupational health professionals for employees who have been on sick leave for four weeks.
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