News

Additional Paternity Leave Regulations come into statute in April 2010, however the new rights will only be applicable to the parents of babies born on or after 3rd April 2011.

Preparations to implement the new regulations would need to be made during 2010, hence the reason for the effective date of statute being this year.

The regulations allow for the employee taking the paternity leave to take a maximum of 26 weeks additional paternity leave, provided that the mother has returned to her work without exhausting her full maternity leave allowance.

Additionally some of the leave may be paid to the person taking paternity leave if the mother had been entitled to statutory maternity pay and not exhausted it.

Simply, this means that in effect the regulations allow for the mother  to transfer her untaken maternity entitlement to the child's father or the person who has parental responsibility for the child.

With effect from April 2010 the traditional GP sick note will be replaced with a new "fit note" system of sickness certification.

The government intends to change the format and content of the previous GP sick note so that the GP is able to provide more detailed information, which ultimately may help the employee to return to work sooner.   

Effective from 1st October 2009, the National Minimum Wage rates are as follows:- 

Ages 16 + 17  increases from £3.53 to £3.57 per hour

Ages 18 - 21 increases from £4.77 to £4.83 per hour

Age 22 + increases from £5.73 to £5.80 per hour

The most recent update on the test case known as Heydey, is that it has now been heard at the European Court of Justice.

Heydey is an arm of Age Concern and have been trying to establish that a mandatory retirement age contravenes EU law. If their claim was successful it would establish that employees have the automatic right to work beyond the age of 65.  At present the right is to "request" to work beyond the age of 65, but Heyday could change this, and therefore affecting millions of employees approaching 65 who may want to continue working.

However the ECJ has determined that having a compulsory retirement age is capable of being justified, and therefore does fall within the scope of the relevant Regulations and Directives. As a result of the ECJ judgment, the case will now return to the High Court and it is expected that a hearing will be later this year.  We will keep you notified of the outcome, and until then our advice is to keep the default retirement age at 65 and ensure that you follow the statutory procedures relating to this.

With effect from 1st April 2009, the statutory minimum holiday entitlement increased to 5.6 weeks.  For an employee working 5 days per week this is a total of 28 days per year, this will include customary public holidays.

Therefore employers who currently give 20 days holiday plus the normal 8 bank holidays are compliant with the minimum entitlement awarded to employees.

Employers should review their contracts and Employee Handbooks to ensure they are legally compliant, or if they need to be updated.

With effect from 1st April 2009, the right to request flexible working was extended to those with parental responsibility for children aged 16 and under.

Previously this has been a right only applicable to those with parental responsibility for children aged 6 or under. 

Previous rules and procedures still apply in that this is a right to "request" and not an automatic right to be allowed a change to working patterns or hours.  An employer still has the opportunity to reject such a request however a statutory procedure must still be followed in order to deal with a formal flexible working reqeust.

Advise is available from Drury PSM on step by step guidance on how to deal with flexible working requests.

It is confirmed that further to the increase in October 2009 to £380 for statutory redunancy payments, there is to be no further increase at this moment in time. 

With effect from 4th April 2010 the rates of statutory maternity, paternity and adoption pay increases from £123.06 to £124.88 per week.

The standard rate of statutory sick pay has not been increased and therefore remains at £79.15 per week.

With effect from 6th April 2010 the weekly earnings threshold for the above payments increases from £95.00 to £97.00.

A most unusual scenario has been announced by the Government in that there is to be a decrease in the statutory rate of guarantee pay.

With effect from 1st February 2010 the amount is set to decrease from £21.50 per day to £21.20. 

Additionally the maximum compensation award at employment tribunal will also decrease with effect from February 2010. The previous amount was £66,200 however this is reduced to £65,300