HR Focus - January 2010
Happy new year and welcome to this month’s edition of HR
Focus
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has
announced the proposed rates of various statutory payments for
2010.
The proposal is that the earnings threshold for
statutory adoption, maternity, paternity and sick pay will rise
from £95 to £97 per week. Statutory adoption, maternity and
paternity pay and Maternity Allowance will all increase from
£123.06 to £124.88, but statutory sick pay will remain at £79.15.
It is expected that these changes will come into effect in April
2010.
The Government has also published the Employment
Rights (Revision of Limits) Order 2009, which decreases the maximum
compensatory award for unfair dismissal (reflecting the decrease in
RPI), this will fall from £66,200 to £65,300.
The revisions made by the Order take effect when
the event giving rise to the entitlement to compensation or other
payment occurs on or after 1 February 2010.
The use of the same RPI formula in relation to
the limit on a week’s pay used to calculate redundancy payments and
the unfair dismissal basic award was suspended following a one-off
increase in October. The limit on weekly pay for these purposes
will remain at £380 until February 2011 at the earliest.
If you have any comments, queries or questions
for our question and answer feature then please email askemployment@weightmans.com.
Alternatively, you can call Laura Kearsley, Editor on 0121 200
3480.
In this month’s edition:
O'Neill v Buckinghamshire County Council
Clarification of the duty on employers to
undertake risk assessments for pregnant workers. Steve Peacock, Partner in the Liverpool team
considers the law in this area in light of the recent EAT decision
in O'Neill v Buckinghamshire County Council.
Dansie v Metropolitan Police
Dress codes and hair style, how far can an employer go? Kevin McKenna reports on the recent EAT decision in
Dansie v Metropolitan Police
Paviainen v Finnair Oyj
What rights does a pregnant employee have after
she has been transferred for health and safety reasons?
Tim Lang, Head of Practice Area and Partner
in the Midlands team considers the Advocate General’s opinion on
the case of Paviainen v Finnair Oyj.
Time off for infertility treatment
What rights do employees have when undergoing IVF
treatment? Mike Berriman, Partner in
the London team sets out a checklist for employers looking to draft
a policy on this.
Question and answer
And finally, in our regular Question and Answer
section, Mick Whiteley, Head of Employee Relations at OCS Group UK
asks Lee Rogers, Associate in the Liverpool
team: “In cases where clients request that an employee be removed
from their site, we are often left with no option but to dismiss by
reason of SOSR. We want to be sure that we are following proper
procedure in order to avoid Tribunal claims”.
This update does not attempt to provide a full
analysis of those matters with which it deals and is provided for
general information purposes only and is not intended to constitute
legal advice and should not be treated as a substitute for legal
advice. Weightmans LLP accepts no responsibility for any loss that
may arise from reliance on the information in this update. The
copyright in this update is owned by Weightmans.