2009 looks to be an interesting year from an employment law perspective. Here are some of the developments to look out for...
Holiday Entitlement
From 1st April, statutory holiday entitlement increases from 4.8 weeks to 5.6 weeks.
Discipline & Grievance
6th April sees the repeal of the statutory dispute resolution procedures, via the Employment Act 2008. In addition, the new ACAS Code of Practice on Discipline & Grievance and accompanying guidance will come into effect and employment tribunals will be able to adjust compensation by up to 25% for unreasonable failure to comply with the ACAS Code.
Discrimination
The Government has set out its proposals for the new Equality Bill, the primary purpose of which is to consolidate discrimination legislation into one Act. The Bill also seeks to create a new single public sector equality duty, which will not only bring together the current race, gender and disability equality duties but will also extend to age, sexual orientation and religion or belief. The Bill also provides for the extension of age discrimination law to the provision of goods, facilities and services; the widening of the scope of positive action measures and for greater pay transparency. It will be interesting to see how the detail of this Bill develops in the coming year.
In addition, following the House of Lords decision in a housing case last year, London Borough of Lewisham v Malcolm (see our e-update by clicking here), the Government is consulting on how the forthcoming Equality Bill should address disability discrimination in light of this case, in which the Lords ruled that the well-established comparator test laid down in Clark v Novacold in 1999 is incorrect, making it now more difficult for employees to show they have been discriminated against for a reason related to their disability. The Government is therefore considering the introduction of the concept of indirect discrimination in disability discrimination law, in place of "disability-related" discrimination, which will also assist with the policy aim of the Equality Bill, to harmonise the various strands of discrimination law.
Family Friendly
From 6th April, the right to request flexible working will be extended to parents of children up to the age of 16. The right is currently restricted to parents of children under 6 (18 if disabled) and carers of adult dependants.
Disclaimer
The material contained in this article is of the nature of general comment only and does not give advice on any particular matter. Recipients should not act on the basis of the information in this e-update without taking appropriate professional advice upon their own particular circumstances.