HMO Quarterly Employment Bulletin – February 2012


FORTHCOMING DEVELOPMENTS FOR 2012
There are some significant changes looming for Employment Practitioners this year and below is a summary;

January
By 31 January 2012 most public authorities (excluding educational institutions) should have published information to show compliance with the general public sector equality duty from the Equality Act.

February
From 1 February the new Tribunal award limits come into force these include:

• An increase in the cap for the Compensatory award for unfair dismissal from £68,400 to £72,300
• An increase in the maximum amount of a "week's pay" for the purposes of calculating the Basic award compensation for unfair dismissal or redundancy payment from £400 to £430

March
Consultation on the proposals for the introduction of fees in Employment Tribunal claims closes on 6 March

April
In a busy month the following changes are due:

• Statutory Maternity, Paternity and Adoption Pay, and Maternity Allowance will increase from £124.88 to £128.73
• Statutory Sick Pay will increase from £79.15 to £81.60
• It is expected that qualifying period for unfair dismissal will increase to 2 years 
• The increase in deposit orders that Employment Tribunals can order on weak cases is scheduled to increase from £500 to £1000

August
The revised European Self-employment Equal Treatment Directive must be implemented in Member States by 5 August 2012, although an extension until 5 August 2014 will be given if a Member State can show particular difficulties . This will provide self-employed female workers with the same access to maternity leave as salaried workers, and the spouses or life partners of self-employed workers with access to their own social security rights.

October
It is expected that there will be a further annual increase in the national minimum wage (Such a change is usually brought into force on 1 October). The level of any increase is likely to be announced in April.


THE OLYMPICS
I case you’d forgotten the Olympics are in London this year.  ACAS have issued some helpful guidance, available from their website, on dealing with issues such as requests for time off and less diligent employees watching or listening to events at work.

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL FEES
As indicated above consultation is taking place about the possible introduction of fees to issue Employment Tribunal claims.

As things stand fees are being proposed  firstly for the issue of a claim then for a subsequent hearing.  Fees in the region of £150-£250 are being suggested for the issue of a claim and £250-£1,250 for its hearing.

From an employer’s perspective this may deter spurious claims from being issued and, in terms of the hearing fee, act as an incentive to settle.

Further fees are being suggested for other Tribunal Procedures such as requesting written reasons for a judgment and also for proceedings taken to the Employment Appeals Tribunal.


OPPORTUNISTIC DISMISSALS
In a recent Employment Appeals Tribunal case of  Governing Body of John Loughborough School and  London Borough of Haringey v Alexis, the Tribunal has found that even where an employee is dismissed for an act of misconduct which is normally capable of justifying dismissal, the dismissal may be unfair if the primary reason for dismissal was not that misconduct but a different reason entirely such as a pre-existing concern about the employee's capability, and the misconduct has been used 'opportunistically' as a pretext for dismissal.

Dr Alexis was the head  of a primary school. The local authority formed the view that she was not up to the job and put pressure on her and the school’s Governors to get her to leave. When this was unsuccessful, the Governors were replaced by an Interim Executive Board who resolved to seek the Dr Alexis’s dismissal. A demonstration took place at the school in Dr Alexis’s support which disrupted the running of the school. Dr Alexis was suspended and subsequently dismissed, primarily for not taking steps to prevent the demonstrators entering the school or to minimise the disruption. Her claim of unfair dismissal was upheld by the Appeals Tribunal on the basis that the events of the day of the demonstration were a pretext and that the real reason for her dismissal was the prior decision of the Board that she should go.

The difficulties that the employers faced were that the previous decision tainted the subsequent disciplinary process and that the previous decision that she “should go” was not as a consequence of any disciplinary procedure.


ET1s and FAULTY FAX MACHINES
The recent Employment Appeals Tribunal case of Yellow Pages Sales Ltd v Davie concerned the sending of an ET1 claim form sent by fax to the Employment Tribunal.

The form was sent to the correct Tribunal fax number and the sender received a transmission report confirming that all pages had been received.  Unfortunately there was a problem with the Tribunal’s fax machine meaning that the fax was neither stored nor printed out and consequently not picked up by the Tribunal.

The employer argued that the tribunal office did not receive the ET1 in writing, as required by Employment Tribunal’s Procedural rules.  The Appeals Tribunal did not accept this argument. It ruled that what was faxed to the Tribunal was a written document. The technological means by which that writing was conveyed would, if the fax machine had not malfunctioned have translated into a written document.  It was in effect lost at the Tribunal’ end.

For advice and assistance in respect of employment matters contact Nigel Pepper, Consultant or Patrick Nelson, Associate on 01785 211411.

If you would like to read other articles, fact sheets and bulletins on Employment Law go to www.hmo.co.uk. 

2 February 2012

Disclaimer
The contents of this article are for the purposes of general awareness only. They do not purport to constitute legal or professional advice. The law may have changed since this article was published.  Readers should not act on the basis of the information included and should take appropriate professional advice upon their own particular circumstances.