All Tax and legislation articles – Page 17
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OpinionAlan Lewis: What a recent court case can teach us about vicarious liability
Whilst employers can draw some comfort in terms of defending vicarious liability claims from the recent Court of Appeal case of Chell v Tarmac Cement and Lime Limited [2022] EWCA Civ 7, they ought not be complacent and there are lessons to be learned.Chell was a fitter employed by a ...
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OpinionBecky Lawton: Will new staff family rights come into force in 2022?
The government has committed to introducing several new family rights following a number of consultations over the last couple of years.The introduction of neonatal leave and pay will create a new statutory entitlement for employees whose babies spend an extended period of time in neonatal care. The intention is to ...
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OpinionRichard Fox and Ozlem Mehmet: Removing vaccination as a condition of employment
Health secretary Sajid Javid has announced that the government will launch a consultation on removing vaccination as a condition of employment in health and all social care settings.The regulations requiring front line health workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 (Coronavirus) as a condition of employment were due to come into ...
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OpinionLaurie Ollivent: Covid-19 is reshaping gender and diversity reporting
Working parents comprise a key demographic of the workforce. As mid-tenure employees, they are experienced and often have a level of institutional knowledge which can rarely be replaced with a lateral hire.However, reports suggest this demographic is more likely than others to be re-evaluating their roles coming out of the ...
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OpinionTom Moyes: Encouraging conversations with employees around mental health
At any one time, one-sixth of the working age population of Great Britain experiences symptoms associated with mental ill health, and this causes around 40% of all days lost through sickness absence, according to the Mental health and work report published in 2008 by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.So why ...
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OpinionDavid Jepps: How Covid-19 affects statutory sick pay
At the start of the pandemic, statutory sick pay (SSP) rules were changed to include Covid-19 (Coronavirus) scenarios because self-isolation or having tested positive with no symptoms were not covered by the SSP definition of incapacity. Those rules have since been tweaked many times and are expected to stay in ...
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OpinionKerry Hudson: Is a change ahead in flexible working laws?
UK employees seeking flexible working arrangements to help manage their work-life balance could be caught short unless they have completed at least 26 weeks of service for their current employers.With a great many businesses and employees still away from the office since the start of the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic, and ...
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OpinionEmma Clark: Will there be more menopause-related employment tribunal hearings?
Recent analysis of figures from the HM Courts and Tribunals Service showed that the menopause was cited in five employment tribunal cases in the last nine months of 2018. That rose to 10 cases in the first six months of 2021.While there has been a rise in claims which refer ...
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OpinionJeremy Harris: What are the long-term consequences of the pensions pay gap?
During a House of Lords debate on 22 November 2021, following a question posed by Labour life peer Lord Sikka about the UK government's efforts to tackle entrenched gender pay inequality, the pensions gap was highlighted as an issue of major concern.The pensions gap, it was noted, contributes to societal ...
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OpinionLorraine Heard and Karen Plumbley-Jones: Has gender pay gap reporting closed the wage gap between men and women?
18 November marked Equal Pay Day, the date from which on average women work without pay for the rest of the year as a result of the gender pay gap. Since April 2017, it has been compulsory for large employers with 250 or more employees to publish a gender pay ...
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OpinionSuzanne Staunton: How can employers tackle furlough fraud?
With the UK government’s furlough scheme having come to an end, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has now stepped forward to start counting the cost of the scheme to taxpayers. Already, many instances have been identified of bogus companies having been set up purely to siphon off public funds, the ...
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OpinionKirsty Pake: How to solve a problem like pension scams
To quote the Department of Work and Pensions: “pension scams are a menace”. Until now, trustees’ hands were tied where a member had a statutory right to transfer their benefits and, even in cases where the receiving arrangement appeared to be a scam, they were obliged to make the transfer.Regulations ...
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OpinionTim Tyndall: FCA employees facing pay and benefits changes
Following a flurry of interest in the proposed changes to pay and benefits at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), most notably from unions keen to look after members and to attract new ones, the FCA chose to publish its consultation document aimed at its employees to a wider audience.In opening, ...
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OpinionSophie Wahba: What can employers do to manage stress in the workplace?
Managing the mental wellbeing of employees is a matter of growing concern for many business owners, as the stress of the last 18 months has taken its toll on the workforce.A 2020 Perkbox survey called The 2020 UK workplace stress survey suggests that an astonishing 79% of British adults commonly ...
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OpinionKate Brown: How to avoid reduced pay and benefits impacting staff engagement
At the beginning of October, British Airways announced plans to rehire some 3,000 employees after cutting around 10,000 jobs in the peak of the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic last year. The airline has been heavily criticised in the press for re-engaging staff on less favourable terms, including reduced pay and benefits.This ...
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OpinionEmma Clark: Breaking the staff menopause taboo
All women will experience the menopause at some point during their life. It can also impact both trans and non-binary people who may not identify as female. Most of those who experience the menopause will do so between the ages of 45 and 55, and between 75% and 80% of ...
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AnalysisTop tips for introducing salary sacrifice pension schemes
A salary sacrifice pension arrangement should not be agreed if the effect of this, such as a reduction in the employee’s pay, would lead to a breach of the national minimum wage legislation. A simple step, such as giving employees full transparency on which businesses the ...
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OpinionKaren Plumbley-Jones: Guidance for employers on the furlough scheme end
How many jobs have been saved by the furlough scheme? We won't ever know the answer to that question, but 11.6 million jobs have been supported by the scheme at some point. That equates to roughly 40% of the total UK workforce and we have seen far fewer redundancies than ...
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OpinionRichard Freedman: Government launches consultation on making flexible working the default
The UK government has launched a consultation considering various reforms to the existing flexible working legislation.The consultation sets out a number of proposals for reshaping the existing regulatory framework to facilitate the objective of expanding the ability to work flexibly. The most striking element is the proposal to give all ...
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OpinionRanjit Dhindsa: Introducing mandatory ethnicity pay reporting
On 20 September 2021, UK MPs took part in an e-petition debate on the introduction of mandatory ethnicity pay reporting for UK organisations.The petition, which received more than 130,000 signatures, followed the introduction of mandatory gender pay reporting and the publication of the McGregor-Smith review of race in the workplace, ...