Legislation - Updating employment law

There are a number of changes that came into effect from 6 April 2009. The main ones are connected to increases in the level of the entitlement to paid annual leave, increased rates of statutory maternity and sick pay, extending rights in relation to flexible working and changing from the statutory dispute resolution procedure to the new Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service code of practice.

The entitlement to paid annual leave increases from the current level of 4.8 weeks to 5.6 weeks. The new level is the equivalent of 28 days paid leave if somebody works five days a week. It is worth remembering that, while this is the equivalent of four weeks plus eight days public and bank holidays, it does not give a right to have public and bank holidays off as paid leave. Workers can be still be required to work on those days and are not entitled to any additional rates of pay for working those days unless that is provided for in the contract. If a worker does receive public and bank holidays off as paid leave then they will count towards meeting this statutory entitlement.

There has been an annual uprating of mandatory payments. Statutory maternity pay increases to £123.06 from £117.18, while statutory sick pay also increases to £79.15 from £75.40.

The right to request flexible working has now been extended to parents with children under the age of 17; previously, this applied only to parents with children under the age of six. The way that requests are to be made and considered has not changed; it is only the number of people entitled. Any parent of an eligible child will still have worked as your employee for at least 26 weeks and not have made a flexible working request, including unsuccessful ones, in the last 12 months. Employers still have the same rights to refuse the request once it has been considered.

The most significant change is the repeal of the much-maligned statutory dispute resolution procedures and their replacement with the new Acas code of practice; it will fall under the new procedures where the trigger issue occurs after 5 April 2009. There is a transitional period regarding any issues that are triggered before 6 April but continue after that date, so there is some overlap.

The Acas code is a lot more flexible and the change means that we lose the rigidity of the previous procedures. One important aspect of the new procedures is that, for the first time, employers will now be required to set out to employees their rights to be accompanied. Previously, while it was good practice to let people know of their right to be accompanied, the right only became an issue if employees requested this. Under the new rules, if an employee is not told of the right to be accompanied and a tribunal finds that they were unfairly dismissed then any related award can be increased because this is a breach of the code.

The right to be accompanied has not been changed and still applies only in relation to disciplinary and grievance meetings. Bear in mind that recent case law has indicated that, where the consequences of a disciplinary hearing can have wider implications than just the loss of employment, an employee should be given the right to be accompanied by a legal representative.

- Also see the DAS Little Book of Business Law, PB, April 2009.