Employment Law Updates with Practice Business

Employment lawyer Ed Gregory recently had a chat with monthly business management magazine Practice Business about the updates in employment law. The three topics up for discussion were tribunal procedures, pre-termination negotiations and the latest amendments to the TUPE regulations.

Ed told Practice Business that there have been two main changes when it comes to tribunal procodures. Firstly, there is now a requirement for employees to pay fees when brining a tribunal claim, which has resulted in a 60% drop in claims. There is now also a requirement for potential claimants to go through ‘early conciliation’ with ACAS before a claim is brought forward.

In regards to pre-termination agreement, one of the best ways to avoid a claim is to have a ‘protected conversation’ with an employee where a working relationship just isn’t working out. This is an ‘off the record’ discussion which isn’t allowed to be refered to in any future tribunal cases.

According to Ed there were some useful amendments to TUPE regulations last year, which is relevant when practices merge. Dismissals or T&C changes were automatically unfair or void if they were ‘in connection’ to a TUPE transfer. This has now been altered to read where the ‘sole or principle reason’ is the transfer. There have also been changes to the ‘economic, technical or organisational’ (ETO) reason to include location and an extension to 28 days that an employer needs to give Employee Liability Information to the transferee.

You can read much more of what Ed said by reading the full update here. Practice Business: Employment Law – An Update