Recent & Upcoming Employment Law Developments

Paul Griffin, Employment Law Partner, Norton Rose

Recently in force

Entitlement to additional paternity leave - the Additional Paternity Leave and Pay scheme came into force on 6 April 2010 and will apply to parents and adopters of children due or matched for adoption on or after 3 April 2011. The scheme will provide eligible employees with the right to up to 26 weeks' leave to care for a child, if the child's mother or the primary adopter returns to work without exercising their full entitlement to maternity or adoption leave.

The introduction of fit notes - the Regulations which introduced the new "fit note" came into force on 6 April 2010. Since that date, if an employee is unable to work due to sickness, they need to obtain a "statement of fitness for work" or "fit note" from their GP rather than the previous sickness certificate.

Introduction of the right to request time off for training - a new right for certain employees to request time off work to undertake relevant study or training which applies to businesses with 250 or more employees was introduced from 6 April 2010. This right will be extended to all employers, regardless of size, from 6 April 2011.

What's in the pipeline?

Equality Act 2010 - this Act (which is not yet in force) replaces all the existing discrimination laws, harmonising them but largely leaving them unchanged from an employment law perspective. There are however some changes and certain new laws have been introduced. The Act's core provisions are still planned to come into force in October this year.

Agency Workers Regulations 2010 - under these Regulations, which come into force on 1 October 2011, after 12 weeks in the same role, agency workers will be entitled to basic working and employment conditions that are no less favourable than employees recruited direct by the hirer.

Increase in parental leave - current entitlement to unpaid parental leave in the UK is 13 weeks. The UK has until March 2012 to implement the new EU law which increases this entitlement to four months.

Coalition government plans - the new Government has confirmed that it plans to consult on extending the right to request flexible working to all employees and on whether to phase out the default retirement age and has stated that it will encourage shared parenting from the earliest stages of pregnancy and develop a system of flexible parental leave. This may mean that fathers are given the right to time off for ante-natal appointments but it is not yet clear how these proposals would work in practice.

Paul Griffin

Employment Partner
T: +44 (0)20 7444 2169
M: +44 (0)7970 559 914
E: paul.griffin@nortonrose.com