Recent Employment Law Changes
Employers should be aware that the Government recently made a number of changes on its Spring Common Commencement Date, 6th April 2014. A summary of the key changes include:
- Increasing the rate of statutory sick pay from £86.70 per week to £87.55 per week;
- Abolishing the statutory sick pay percentage threshold schemes which enabled employers to recover payments of statutory sick pay with transitional provisions to allow employers to recover payments of statutory sick pay up to 6th April 2016 for days of incapacity occurring prior to 6th April 2014;
- Increasing the rate of statutory maternity pay, ordinary and additional paternity pay and adoption pay from £136.78 per week to £138.18 per week;
- Increasing the statutory limit on the amount of a week’s pay for the purposes of calculating compensation ie statutory redundancy payments and the basic award for unfair dismissal from £450 to £464;
- Increasing the maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal from £74,200 to £76,574, or one year’s salary if this is less than the statutory.
- Changing the tax system to tackle false self-employment ie the use of employment intermediaries, or the membership of a Limited Liability Partnership;
- Revising the categories of employment tribunal claims so that some Type A claims are reorganised as Type B claims, attracting the higher issue fee of £250 and the higher hearing fee of £950; and
- Introducing financial penalties for employers found by an employment tribunal to have breached the employee’s rights if the breach had “one or more aggravating features”, the existence of which will be for the employment tribunal to decide. The penalty will depend on the level of financial award awarded to the successful employee but will be between £100 and £5,000 and be paid to the Secretary of State.
For more information please contact Martin Sinclair or Nicola Gray or call on 01224 632 464.
