Employment Newsletter – Summer 2018


18th July 2018

A warm welcome to Blake Morgan’s Summer newsletter, keeping you informed of the latest developments in Employment Law.

With the 25 May now well behind us, we hope you now have in place your separate privacy notices for staff and job applicants and have specifically considered your lawful reasons for processing both personal data and special categories of personal data or criminal records data. There’s also the consideration of other organisations you might share such data with, and the appropriate policy document you are required to have. If you haven’t yet got these in place, it’s important not to forget about HR-related GDPR issues simply because the deadline has passed – our experts remain happy to help.

There have certainly been many other developments over the past few months including the high profile decision of the Supreme Court in Pimlico Plumbers which considered the issue of employment status, click here for more information. With other gig economy cases still ongoing and a current government consultation exercise on employment status, this is a topic that will be newsworthy for many months to come.

By contrast, there has been relatively little litigation about shared parental leave and pay. However, from the time the right was introduced, back in April 2015, many employers have grappled with the issue of whether or not to enhance shared parental pay when they enhance maternity pay and whether failure to do so is discriminatory. Two recent EAT cases have considered this issue, click here to read the article.

I hope you will find all the articles below informative and helpful, and if you would like any further information please do not hesitate to get in touch with your usual Blake Morgan contact.

Our September Employment Club Seminars commence in the Cardiff office on 11 September and for details of all the other dates please click here. Invitations with full details of the topics will be sent out shortly and I do hope you can join us.

Significant decision on employment status

The Supreme Court has upheld the earlier decisions of the Employment Tribunal, the Employment Appeal Tribunal and Court of Appeal that Mr Smith was a “worker” and not “self-employed” in the high profile Pimlico Plumbers case.

Read more

When can there be a deemed acceptance of changes to terms and conditions?

A recent case demonstrates the risks of an employer relying on employees’ silence to indicate an acceptance of changes to terms and conditions.    

Read more 

Sponsoring migrant workers from outside the European Union: should the cap be raised?

In response to pressures facing the NHS, the Government announced changes to exempt doctors and nurses from the Tier 2 (General) limit, but will it consider raising the overall annual limit to assist UK businesses recruit the skilled workers they need? We also consider the latest unfair dismissal case arising out of right to work checks.

Read more

What is a “qualifying disclosure”?

The Court of Appeal gives guidance on identifying the difference between “allegation” and “information” for the purposes of whistleblowing protection.

Read more

Unfair dismissal developments

Managing dismissals fairly is not always straightforward as can be seen from some recent EAT decisions that considered the issue of dismissals where there had been no previous disciplinary warnings.

Read more 

Are businesses obliged to enhance Shared Parental Pay?

Two recent EAT cases consider whether it is discriminatory to enhance Maternity Pay but not enhance Shared Parental Pay.

Read more 

New ACAS guidance published

ACAS has extensive guidance and resources on its website and it has recently published updated guidance on a number of topical issues such as religion or belief in the workplace and suspension from work.

Read more

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