Wednesday 30 November 2011

Do Governments Have Ears?


I’ve just read the Government’s response to its ‘Resolving Workplace Disputes’ consultation.  We submitted our own views (copies available for free if you are interested - email us if you’d like to see what we thought) and now we can see what the politicians think.

Our view was that a 12 months qualifying period for eligibility to claim Unfair Dismissal was alright.  2 years is too long.  Surely a decent employer will know inside a year whether they need to dismiss?  And there’s the adverse effect on staff job security too.

The Government noted:

-  Most consultation respondents disagreed with increasing the period to 2 years
-  The increase would not reduce the number of claims by the amount the government had forecast (read: their scaremongering was overdone)
-  Minority groups (e.g. women, disabled people) would probably be proportionately worse off following the increase
-  Small businesses weren’t any more affected by these claims than bigger ones

    Good.  That’s settled then.  No need to increase the qualifying period.

    The 2 year limit comes into force in April 2012.

    And despite negative responses to the idea of ET judges sitting alone in these cases, the Government’s going to do that, too.

    I’ve wondered for a few years now whether there’s any point responding to Government consultations.  Why ask the experts when you’ve made up your mind already?
    - Paul Scholey, Senior Partner

    Thursday 24 November 2011

    Flexible Working

    The coalition government is keen to reform employment laws, but for the better? 

    The Beecroft Report, commissioned by David Cameron, calls for the abolition of the right to request flexible working, in addition to the removal of employee protection for unfair dismissal. 

    Currently, employees with children under a certain age and carers are entitled by statute to make a request to work flexible hours, subject to meeting certain qualifying criteria and as long as they follow strict procedures. There is no obligation on an employer to grant the request, but it must be considered seriously. 

    It has been said by the coalition government that it is committed to extending those statutory rights to request flexible working to all employees, not just parents and carers. However, it is feared by Adrian Beecroft, a venture capitalist, that extending flexible working would have a detrimental effect on businesses and would lead to a tidal wave of flexible working requests.

    The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in response has made a Freedom of Information request to see how many tribunal claims relate to the right to request flexible working. The figures show that out of 218,100 claims accepted in 2010/2011, only 277 alleged that employers failed to consider a request for flexible working.  229 of these were successfully conciliated and only 10 of the 48 claims that reached the Tribunal were successful. 

    So is it not now clear that the fears expressed about extending the right to flexible working are grossly exaggerated? CIPD say the figures show that most employers already recognise that flexible working is an integral part of the modern workplace and are happy to consider such requests. That may be the case. Or it may be that the statutory right to request flexible working arrangements lacks any real teeth and the procedures to be followed to make a valid request are simply too rigid. It is very difficult for employees to do anything about an employer’s refusal to allow flexible working. 

    Either way, it seems unlikely that the extension of the right will lead to an avalanche of requests. Even if requests were to increase, surely a good employer would recognise that employees who get to work flexibly are likely to work harder and are more loyal. Hopefully, the government will stick to their guns and increase flexible working rights. In this tough economic climate there is too much emphasis on diluting employees’ rights, which could ultimately be counter-productive. Promoting a good work-life balance is so easily forgotten. 

    - Daniel Kindell, Solicitor

    For further information, please contact our Employment Rights team on 0113 245 0733