In our ERA Series Insight Employment Rights Act - New trade union law and updated timeline last month, when we covered the first tranche of trade union changes that came into force on 18 February, we also looked ahead to touch upon the next wave of key changes coming in in April.
In this Insight, we delve deeper to highlight practical considerations employers should be alive to in respect of the April changes.
01 April 2026
- Repeal of the levy that trade unions (and employer associations) pay to the UK’s Trades Union Certification Officer.
- No employer action required.
06 April 2026
- Collective redundancy: For dismissals on or after 06 April, the maximum protective award for failure to collectively consult will increase from 90 days to 180 days’ pay per employee making non-compliance significantly more expensive. Redundancy collective consultation.
- Review how consultation exercises have been managed in the past and where improvements can be made, especially if established representative bodies are not in place.
- Refresher training for HR staff responsible for guiding the organisation’s redundancy processes.
- Paternity Leave and Unpaid Parental Leave: these will both become ‘Day 1’ rights with no qualifying period of service. Importantly though, it is understood that 26 weeks’ service will still be required before an employee qualifies for Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP). The current anomalous restriction in taking paternity leave after a period of Shared Parental Leave will also be removed.
Separately, outside the ERA 2025, Bereaved Partners’ Paternity Leave (BPPL) will enable bereaved fathers and partners to take up to 52 weeks of paternity leave if the mother or primary adopter dies within the first year of the child’s life (and the bereavement takes place on or after 6 April 2026).- Review family friendly (and bereavement / leave) policies to incorporate the changes, conscious of the fact that the government intends a further review of the entire parental leave system in 2027.
- Review your staff demographic to assess which employees may fall into the affected categories and assess the potential operational and financial implications for your business.
- Communicate with staff via networks and internal comms about the changes
- Statutory Sick Pay (SSP): The three day waiting period and lower earnings limit for SSP will be abolished as reported in our previous insight.
- Update your sickness absence policy to remove references to the current three-day waiting period and update processes to take account of the removal of the lower earnings limit and three waiting days.
- Remind employees and managers (and refresh training if needed) about absence reporting procedures but note that where stricter requirements are applied to contractual sick pay, they cannot override the statutory position for SSP eligibility. For example, SSP rules do not allow for a specific time to be specified for reporting sickness absence on the first day of incapacity although many employers ask to be notified by the start of a shift or within a certain timeframe.
- Action plans on gender equality and supporting employees through the menopause: for employers with 250 or more employees, these will be introduced on a voluntary basis on 06 April 2026 and become mandatory in ‘spring 2027’.
Action plans need to show steps being taken towards gender equality including how employers are addressing the gender pay gap, supporting people through menopause and reducing risk of sexual harassment (see below re actions to prevent harassment). The government published a detailed and comprehensive set of guidance on 04 March 2026 to assist employers in creating actions plans to tackle gender inequality throughout the employment relationship, from recruitment to promotion and development; and also in relation to pay transparency. More detailed guidance is expected in April 2026. The new regime will also require affected employers to publish their action plans (and other prescribed information (yet to be specified) and this will need to be updated, probably every 12 months in line with current gender pay gap reporting requirements. The existing digital platform for gender pay gap reporting will be adapted to allow action plans to be uploaded and there will be a ‘naming and shaming’ mechanism enabling publication of a list of those employers in default. In due course there will be an Equal Pay Regulatory Enforcement Unit.
It is planned that the scope of this duty will be extended in 2027 to mean that organisations will need to provide information (again, yet to be specified in further regulations) about other organisations they contract with for outsourced services.- Consider the government guidance and work out which of the suggested actions are relevant to your organisation; use the list of actions as a checklist to formulate your organisation’s action plan.
- Creating an action plan: guidance for employers
- Action plans: list of actions
- Procedurally, take the voluntary introduction period as an opportunity for a dry run at collating your information. Do your data collation and reporting systems work as you want / need them to? Use the intervening period to address flaws.
- Substantively, look at your organisations’ data. Identify weaknesses and formulate a plan on how to improve.
- Update Menopause and other Equality policies to include reference to the organisation’s duties and links to action plans.
- Identify outsourcing contracts that might need to be updated to ensure information is available to enable your organisation to comply with the future extended reporting requirements in 2027.
- Trade Union recognition: More trade union changes, this time intended to simplify the trade union recognition process and make recognition easier to achieve, are due to come into force on 06 April 2026.
For example, the requirement that at least 40% of the total bargaining until must vote in support of recognition in a CAC recognition ballot will be removed, leaving the outcome to a simple majority of those voting.
Similarly, the thresholds allowing a union to make a recognition application to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) will be reduced. Whilst a union’s need to evidence a 10% membership within the relevant collective bargaining unit will remain in place for now, the government now has power to lower it to 2-10% in future; and the need for the CAC to be satisfied of a likely 50% support mandate to achieve recognition will also go in April 2026. Employers will be required to provide the CAC with basic information (name, date of birth and work type) about the employees in a bargaining unit in respect of which a recognition application has been made, within 5 working days. Once a recognition application is made to the CAC, a union will also be able to request access to the relevant workers during the following 20-day ‘negotiation period’ and, if that is unsuccessful in enabling the parties to reach a recognition agreement, the CAC’s further 10-day ‘adjudication period’.
Looking ahead beyond April
Still further trade union provisions are scheduled for later in the ERA implementation programme. Whilst the majority that will require action from employers (duty to inform workers of their right to join a union, trade union rights of access to workplaces and paid time off and facilities for union officials and learning representatives) are due in October 2026, a couple of recognition ‘stragglers’ and industrial action balloting reforms affecting unions will take place in August 2026. Specifically, the removal of the 50% turnout threshold and the introduction of electronic balloting for industrial action.
Finally, electronic balloting for union recognition is due to be implemented in 2027. Many of these post-April 2026 measures have only recently concluded relevant consultations, the outcomes of which are still awaited, and will be addressed in future insights in more detail. In the meantime, in respect of the April 2026 changes:- Employers or HR /IR teams with active unions will need to familiarise themselves and receive training on the new regime
- Employers who are currently non-unionised and prefer to stay that way should review their current employee engagement and negotiating arrangements (for example, employee representative bodies or works councils etc) as it is generally considered that workforces which feel involved and listened to may consider union intervention unnecessary or unwelcome so would not lend their support were union(s) to seek / apply for recognition.
- Watch out for further insights ahead of the October 2026 measures which will require more specific employer action.
- New record keeping obligations re Working Time Regulations (WTR) compliance: a new requirement for records to be kept (and retained for 6 years) to evidence employers’ compliance with WTR annual leave entitlement and pay obligations.
- Review systems that relate to employees’ accrual and use of holiday entitlement and the appropriate payment of related holiday pay, to ensure the systems can be interrogated to demonstrate compliance with the WTR. If not, consider what changes can be made to existing systems or find alternative ways of creating the necessary records.
- Reiterate training and communications around the need for staff to take holiday.
- Double-check holiday pay provision is WTR compliant, especially for those with complex working arrangements such as irregular hours, part year working etc.
- Umbrella company tax reform: Whilst the ERA reforms concerning the regulation of umbrella companies are expected in 2027, a non-ERA tax change (under the Finance Act 2026 published last week on 20 March 2026) will commence on 06 April 2026. This provides that end user clients and / or agencies will be jointly and severally liable alongside the umbrella company for its tax and NIC obligations.
- Interrogate workforce / payroll systems and managers to identify where umbrella companies supply workers to the organisation.
- Review existing contractual arrangements to include provision for umbrella companies to provide regular information and assurances on their tax and NIC returns in respect of the workers supplied; and include warranties and indemnities in respect of liabilities (including fines, cost of investigation / litigation by HMRC etc) in the case of any default by the umbrella company.
07 April 2026
- The Fair Work Agency: will be legally established on 07 April but with some of its wide-ranging and significant powers around investigation and enforcement of National Minimum Wage, Statutory Sick Pay and holiday pay coming into effect subsequently (details of when this will be are awaited). However, it is planned (although commencement regulations are still awaited even at this late stage!) that it will immediately assume responsibility for enforcing employment agency rules (from EASI), and gangmaster licencing and labour exploitation obligations (from the GLAA). See out previous Insight for further details and the acronyms!
- Whilst no specific actions arise for most employers from the FWA’s inception, an audit or ‘healthcheck’ on payroll systems’ functioning/accuracy, pay data and records can only be a good thing.
Other ERA changes for October 2026 and Beyond
In forthcoming Insights in the series, we will extend our practical horizon-scanning to other measures scheduled to come into force in October 2026 and beyond.
Previous insights in our ERA Series
Employment Rights Act Series: Further consultations for Spring 2026 (Principal Associate, Louise Singh) 25 February 2026
Employment Rights Act Series: New trade union law now in force and updated timeline (Principal Associate, Louise Singh) 25 February 2026
Employment Rights Act Series: Redundancy collective consultation: Doubling down on recalcitrant employers by doubling up on protective awards (Principal Associate, Suzanne Nulty and Legal Director, Victoria Duddles) 29 January 2026
Hark! The Employment Rights Act 2025 is nigh… (Partner, Nick Newman and Principal Associate, Louise Singh) 17 December 2025
Employment Rights Bill Series: Four ‘autumn 2025’ consultation launched (Principal Associate, Matt Smith) 24 October 2025
Employment Rights Bill Series: Amendments to zero-hours contracts provisions (Principal Associate, Suzanne Nulty and Principal Associate, Louise Singh) 07 August 2025
Employment Rights Bill Series: Amendments to the Fire and Re-hire provisions (Legal Director, Ross Hutchison) 22 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill series | July amendments: NDA changes and more (Principal Associate, Louise Singh) 13 July 2025
Employment Right Bill Series: Implementation Roadmap – a long and winding road (Principal Associate, Suzanne Nulty and Partner, Mark Landon) 08 July 2025
Employment Right Bill Series: House of Lords Stages completed (Principal Associate, Suzanne Nulty) 26 June 2025
Employment Rights Bill Series: The House of Lords Stages so far (Principal Associate, Suzanne Nulty) 6 June 2025
Employment Rights Bill Series: Employment Rights Bill moves from Commons to Lords (Principal Associate, Suzanne Nulty) 25 March 2025
Employment Rights Bill Series continued (Principal Associate, Suzanne Nulty) 7 March 2025
Employment Rights Bill Series: Zero Hours Contracts and Guaranteed Hours: A Zero-Sum policy? (Principal Associate, Louise Singh) 27 January 2025
Employment Rights Bill Series: Small but significant changes to the statutory sick pay system (Principal Associate, Ashley Powis) 13 December 2024
Employment Rights Bill Series: First set of proposed amendments: what it means and what to expect (Principal Associate, Suzanne Nulty) 6 December 2024
Employment Rights Bill Series: Further rules on fair tipping (Principal Associate, Ashley Powis) 3 December 2024
Employment Rights Bill Series: Dismissal and Re-engagement - Tying the Hands of employers? (Legal Director, Ross Hutchison) 22 November 2024
Employment Rights Bill Series: The Fair Work Agency (Principal Associate, Suzanne Nulty) 15 November 2024
Employment Rights Bill Series: The Pendulum Swings on Industrial Relation (Partner Andrew Forrest and Principal Associate, Louise Singh) 8 November 2024
Employment Rights Bill Series: Day 1 right to claim unfair dismissal (Principal Associate, Suzanne Nulty and Associate, Lauren Barchet) 25 October 2024
Employment Right Bill Series – Flexible Working “Further Flexion” (Principal Associate, Suzanne Nulty) 21 October 2024
The Employment Rights Bill Series: 2024 – What’s in, What’s out, and What’s next (Principal Associates, Louise Singh and Suzanne Nulty) 11 October 2024
For support on any of the changes that have come from the Employment Rights Act, please contact our employment law solicitors.
