NEW EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION IN 2013

The Government has announced key employment legislation changes that will be introduced or that it intends to introduce in 2013 are:

• Employment tribunal award limits will rise; the limit on the amount of a week’s pay increases from £430 to £450 and the maximum compensation award for unfair dismissal goes up from £72,300 to £74,200.
• Unpaid parental leave will increase from 13 to 18 weeks.
• The Government has announced that it intends to reduce the 90-day minimum period for collective redundancy consultation to 45 days.
• Employment tribunal fees are set to be introduced in the summer of 2013. Tribunals will also have the power reimburse fees paid by the successful party.

John Cook of SAS Daniels commented:

“The reduction in redundancy consultation period won’t have any impact for small and medium employers as this change only applies to large scale redundancies – and the changes may only have a limited effect for large employers. Large employers can still issue notice to employees as long as the consultation has reached a conclusion, therefore currently if employers want to shed employees quickly, they can already do so.

“The changes will not allow a larger employer to dismiss more quickly as the logistical issues of concluding a consultation process involving the representatives for 100 employees will, in most cases, involve a longer period than 45 days. Even without this change, the current position is that as long as the consultation process has finished, even if this is earlier than 90 days, an employer can give notice to terminate the contract.
As long as the notice does not take effect until after the 90 days has expired that is fine. Given that most employees will be entitled to at least a month’s notice the effect of reducing the period to 45 days will be negligible. This is a publicity stunt from the government rather than something for employees to be concerned about”.

Other employment legislation that may come into force is the employee shareholder scheme announced in the Budget of March 2012. This scheme, which compensates employees with shares for trading some of their employment rights, has had a luke warm response from business.