The change of government nine months ago has prompted some rethinks about plans for new legislation, so there is uncertainty about what changes employees, employers and businesses can expect to have to cope with in 2011. But for now, here are seven changes that will affect your working life this year, starting from April.
1 Enhanced paternity rights
Enhanced paternity rights will come into effect in respect of babies due on or after April 3, 2011. The current right to take two weeks leave will be extended, for eligible employees, so that they will be able to take up to 26 weeks additional paternity leave to care for a child under one year of age. Eligible persons include natural and adoptive fathers, and persons who are married to or in a civil partnership with the child's mother but are not the child's father, as long as they expect to have the main responsibility for bringing up the child.
2 Positive action in recruitment and promotion
Much of the Equality Act came into effect in October 2010, but other provisions will be introduced in stages following further consultation with stakeholders. One provision that is due to take effect in April 2011 concerns positive action in recruitment and promotion. Under this, employers would be able to favour job candidates on the basis of a "protected characteristic" (such as sex, race, sexual orientation) that is currently under-represented in the employer's workforce. If this planned provision is cancelled at the last minute, existing positive action schemes would become illegal.
3 Extended flexible working rights
The government will extend the current statutory right to ask for flexible working to parents (or adoptive parents) of children under 18. This will take effect from April 2011. This new category of eligible person adds to the existing list of persons who have this right:
- parents of children aged up to 17
- parents of disabled children aged under 18
- carers of certain adults. The right is to ask the employer for permission to work flexibly - there is no presumption that requests will be acceded to (although in practice most are).
The employer has the right to refuse a request if there is a strong business case.
4 No more default retirement age
From October 2011, employers will be prevented from forcing employees to leave employment because they have reached the age of 65 - the so-called "default retirement age".
However, in future they will be able to lay down a compulsory retirement age if they can justify it as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
They will still be able to dismiss people if the reason for the dismissal is strictly related to the employee's capability to do the job. An employer who issues a notification of retirement before April 6, 2011 will still be able to retire the employee if his or her retirement date is before October 1, 2011.
5 Equal treatment for agency workers
New rules regarding the employment of agency workers will come into effect on October 1, 2011 and will affect locums supplied by agencies. The changes set out in the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 will give agency workers the same basic employment terms and conditions as full-time employees after 12 weeks in a given job. The regulations implement the EU's Temporary Agency Workers Directive.
6 New bribery offence
Under the Bribery Act, a new corporate offence of allowing bribes to be offered or paid by a person acting on behalf of a business is introduced. If any employee, agent or subsidiary offers or pays a bribe in order to win or retain business, not only will that person commit an offence but the business they claim to be working for will also commit an offence, even if its directors or managers were not aware of the actions of the individual. The rules also cover accepting a bribe. A statutory defence against this new charge will be that the business has put in place internal controls to deter bribery. Statutory guidance on what this test means was scheduled to be issued in early 2011 by the Ministry of Justice. However, the development of this guidance is late and as a result the implementation of the Act - originally planned for April - has been postponed until later this year.
7 Time to train
The Apprenticeships, Children and Learning Act 2009 introduced a statutory right for employees to make a request to take time off to study or train - this is popularly known as the time to train right. Employers are obliged to consider seriously any requests of this kind that they receive, but will be able to refuse a request where there is a good business reason for doing so. The right to make a request in relation to study or training was introduced for employees in organisations with 250 or more employees in April 2010. The right was meant to be extended to employees of all size firms from April 2011, but this has been postponed pending the analysis of the consultation.
John Davies is head of technical at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants