A new Act which comes into force on 16 January 2009 imposes serious new penalties for directors, employers and employees who are convicted of a health and safety offence. The Bill received Royal Assent on 16 October 2008 and unlike the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act, this has had a relatively easy journey through the parliamentary stages ...
The government announced several new business immigration routes to be launched in 2022 which consolidate and reform existing routes. The aim is to provide more opportunities for businesses to attract talent from overseas as well as to provide opportunities for growing businesses and recent graduates from international universities. The new Global Business Mobility Visas comprise of five different categories: 1 ...
New rules in relation to statutory transfers rules came into force on 30 November 2021 to protect members’ pension savings from being lost as the result of a transfer to a scam arrangement. Trustees and managers (trustees) must take additional steps before a statutory transfer can be paid. Regulatory guidance The new requirements (and everything in this article) only apply to statutory transfers ...
To help further the objectives of the Women’s Health Strategy for England (published by the Department of Health and Social Care in July 2022) £1.97m has been awarded to help women in the workplace who are experiencing reproductive health issues. The grant will be shared between 16 charities which include, amongst others, Fertility Network UK, Sands, Tommy’s and Mind ...
Hot on the heels of the Subsidy Control Act 2022 fully entering into force on 4 January 2023, the three streamlined routes under which UK public authorities will be able to give subsidies without having to assess each one against the subsidy control principles have recently been laid before Parliament: Subsidy Control Act 2022: Streamlined Routes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The routes cover (i) research development and innovation (ii) energy usage and (iii) local growth ...
The Government has published its response to the consultation on the new funding regime for occupational defined benefit (DB) pension schemes, as well as the draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Funding and Investment Strategy) Regulations 2024. The new regime aims to balance the security of members' benefits with the sustainability of sponsoring employers' businesses, and to encourage long-term planning and collaboration between trustees and employers ...
The regulations incoprorate requirements on occupational pension scheme trustees under at 2019 Competition and Markets Authority Order to carry out a tender process for fiduciary management services and set objectives for their investment consultants. The Occupational Pension Schemes (Governance and Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 (Regulations) will come into force on 1 October ...
Back in March 2022, a furore erupted over the mass redundancies by P&O Ferries of its workers and their replacement with an international crew on much lower wages. Amidst all the calls for changes to prevent ‘fire and rehire’ tactics, the only relevant change to employment legislation to have made it onto the statute book so far is The Seafarers' Wages Act 2023 (SWA 2023), which came into force on 23 March 2023 ...
The Government has published its first statement setting out its vision for legal migration and border control as part of the new plan for immigration. This article summarises the key goals that form part of the vision. The statement sets out key delivery priorities for 2021 – 22 ...
The pensions dashboards connection deadline will be pushed back to 31 October 2026 under the Pensions Dashboards (Amendment) Regulations 2023 which were laid before Parliament on 8 June 2023. The new regulations follow Pensions Minister Laura Trott’s 2 March announcement that the Pensions Dashboard Programme (PDP), the body responsible for delivering the digital architecture which underpins pensions dashboards, was to be reset ...
This was introduced on 6 April 2022 and is an essential part of the recruitment process, as this will ensure you have a statutory excuse against a civil penalty and allow you to remain compliant as your duty of sponsors if you currently hold a sponsor licence. The digital right to work check can only be made by Identity Service Providers (IDSPs) for British and Irish Citizens as physical proof of documents are expected to finish by 2025 ...
On 22 February 2024, The Equality and Human Rights Commission published their first guidance on menopause in the workplace (the Guidance). This is a welcomed move in the right direction, but it remains to be seen how far this will change things in practice ...
The UK has introduced new legislation that, from 4 January 2022, will require transactions in certain specified sectors to be approved by the UK government before they can be completed. A new regime The UK is introducing a new regime which, from 4 January 2022, will require purchasers to obtain prior approval for transactions in certain specified sectors ...
On 24 April the Pensions Regulator (TPR) published new guidance (Guidance) on the practical steps trustees should take to manage risk when using leveraged liability driven investments (LDI). The guidance replaces previous guidance issued by TPR in October and November 2022 in the immediate wake of the LDI liquidity crisis. Background On 23 September the Government announced its ‘Growth Plan 2022’ ...
As highlighted in our previous article, the Infected Blood Inquiry’s first interim report established considerable liabilities in relatively short order, recommending that £100,000 be paid “without delay” to victims and partners bereaved by infections transmitted by blood transfusions and blood products. Sir Brian Langstaff, former High Court judge and current Chair of the Infected Blood Inquiry, released his second interim report on 5 April 2023 ...
The ICO’s long-awaited guidance on how organisations can manage transfers of UK data to receivers outside the UK has arrived. What does it say about the direction this government may want to take on data protection reform? It will take time for advisers and users to digest but it’s instructive to take an early tour and try to guess what will prove useful and what are the new bones of contention ...
New Charity Commission guidance may have dropped the phrase “ethical investment” but the need for charities to understand whether they must, should or can invest in line with their ESG aspirations has never been more pressing, as the UK Government presses ahead with its new oil rush following the recent announcement that more than 100 oil and gas drilling licences will be granted for the North Sea in the autumn ...
The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) has issued guidance on ads for cryptoassets following an increase in the number of Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) complaints about crypto ads. What are cryptoassets? Cryptoassets are defined by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as: “cryptographically secured digital representations of value or contractual rights that use some type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) and can be transferred, stored or traded electronically ...
Recently published government guidance on reporting ethnicity pay data will assist those employers who voluntarily choose to report their data. We highlight the key messages from the guidance and the challenges employers need to address when reporting. It is a statutory requirement for employers with 250 or more employees to measure and report gender pay gaps ...
Earlier this year the government passed the controversial Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. Following on from this, detailed guidance has now been published for employers, trade unions and workers on the issuing of work notices. The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act (Act) came into force on 20 July 2023 and attempts to alleviate the disruption caused to the public by prolonged strikes in certain sectors in the wake of recent, sustained industrial action ...
When the Scottish Law Commission (SLC) first invited comments in 2018 on the wide-ranging topic of termination of leases, it sought views not only on those elements which were subsequently covered in its draft bill, the Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) (Bill) published in 2022, but also on the Tenancy of Shops (Scotland) Act 1949 ...
Hot off the press, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy are today introducing a new Code of Practice, and a draft Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill ...
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has issued a report which provides guidance on supporting employees who are experiencing fertility issues. The report surveyed 300 workers who experienced difficulties with fertility while in employment within the last five years, as well as over 2,000 senior HR professionals and decision makers ...
The British Standards Institution (BSI) has released a new workplace standard relating to menstruation and menopause. The BSI standard (BS 30416) aims to support the health and well-being of all employees who menstruate or experience peri/menopause. The standard suggests that there are many actions that employers can take to improve the accommodation of all its employees ...
Hydrogen's potential to support the UK’s journey to net-zero depends in large part on how carbon-intensive the hydrogen we produce is. One of the challenges this presents is transparency. Much like electrons in a wire look the same (whether generated from coal or from wind), a hydrogen molecule looks the same whether produced by electrolysis powered by renewables or from carbon-intensive steam methane reforming ...
