Date 3 October 2008
October and November promise to be busy months for developments in employment law. This Stay Alert is a brief summary of all the changes to ensure that you keep up to date.
1st October 2008
The rate of the National Minimum Wage will increase as follows:
- Workers aged 22 and over from £5.52 to £5.73
- Workers aged 18 and over from £4.60 to £4.77
- Workers under the age of 18 from £3.40 to £3.53
Incapacity benefit and income support are to be replaced by an Employment and Support Allowance for new applicants who are claiming on incapacity grounds.
Employers will no longer be required to keep their liability certificates for 40 years nor display these certificates at each place of business. This is provided that certificates are available to the relevant employees electronically.
The next stage of the implementation of the Companies Act 2006 will take place and the following provisions will come into force:
- Duty of directors to avoid conflicts of interest and not to accept benefits from third parties.
- Duty of directors to declare interest in proposed transactions or arrangements and declare interest in existing transactions or arrangements.
- Provisions relating to corporate directors and under age directors.
- Repeal of the restrictions under the Companies Act 1985 and financial assistance for the acquisition for shares in private companies including the whitewash procedure.
- A solvency statement procedure for private companies to reduce their share capital.
- Provisions on trading disclosure.
- Application of certain provisions of Part 15 (Account) to Limited Liability Partnerships for financial years beginning on or after 1 October 2008.
- Provisions on objections to company name
5 October 2008
Employees due to give birth or adopt on or after 5 October 2008 will have the same rights during additional maternity leave (AML) as they enjoy during ordinary maternity leave (OML). Employers should note that such employees have the right to receive all non monetary benefits under their contract and will continue to accrue annual leave at the rate specified in their terms and conditions throughout their maternity leave. However the position on pension entitlements will remain unchanged. Employers are obliged to maintain pension benefits only during paid maternity absence in both AML and OML.
27 October 2008
The draft Fixed-term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) (Amendment) Regulations 2008 will give agency workers employed under a fixed term contract, the right to statutory sick pay (SSP) from 27 October 2008. Therefore the exemption from SSP for agency workers engaged on contracts of less than three months will be removed.
1st November 2008
In 2008 and 2009 there will be a major overhaul of the immigration system including the replacement of around seventy immigration categories with five tiers and introduction of a points based system. Tiers 2 (Employer Sponsored Workers) and Tiers 5 (Youth Mobility and Temporary Workers) of the points based immigration system will come into force on 1st November 2008 and require an employer to obtain a sponsorship licence in order to sponsor a skilled migrant to work in the UK.
Stay Alert! Employment Bulletin is designed as a brief 'heads up' on the key changes in law that affect employers. For further details, or if you have a query, please feel free to contact Nikki Petken on 01727 798023 or by email at nikki.petken@salaw.com.
© SA Law 2008
Every care is taken in the preparation of our articles. However, no responsibility is accepted as being owed to any person or organisation who acts on the basis of information contained in them. You should obtain specific advice in respect of individual cases.