- Employment Act 2008 re conflict resolution
WEF 6th April 2009 this will remove the statutory dismissal and discipline procedures. In their place will be ACAS's new Code of Practice on Discipline and Grievance encouraging businesses and individuals to resolve disputes internally saving time and money. Failure to comply risks an adjustment to either party of up to 20% on compensation award.
- Statutory annual leave entitlement
Statutory annual leave entitlement increases from 24 days to 28 days on 1 April 2009 – although bank holidays can be included in this total.
Implementing this change will be fairly simple for employers whose holiday year is 1 April to 31 March. However, if an employer’s holiday year straddles 1 April (for example, if it is 1 January to 31 December) then some thought will be required to calculate workers’ pro-rata entitlement, based on 4.8 weeks up to 31 March 2009 and 5.6 weeks from 1 April 2009. To assist, an online calculator has been published on the Business Link web site (www.businesslink.gov.uk).
- Compensation increases
This is important – particularly if you are making redundancies. Compensation limits and other statutory payments have increased, with effect from 1 February 2009. The main increases are as follows:
• Maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal: from £63,000 to £66,200.
• Maximum limit on a week's pay (eg for redundancy pay): from £330 to £350
• Maximum basic award / redundancy payment: from £9,900 to £10,500
• Minimum basic award for certain unfair dismissals: from £4,400 to £4,700
• Maximum guarantee payment per day: from £20.40 to £21.50
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Family-friendly legislation changes
SMP and SAP
Under the Work and Families Act 2006 the Government intended to extend statutory maternity pay (SMP) and statutory adoption pay (SAP) to 52 weeks by the end of Parliament.
In October 2007 the HM Revenue and Customs announced that the changes to SMP, SAP and APL would not take place in April 2009 and that it would now start planning implementation for babies born on or after April 2010, but no firm timing decisions have been taken.
