Archive for the: Employment category

We are increasingly being asked this by Clients following the introduction of the GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018. The general position is that if you are processing personal information as a data controller then you need to pay the data protection fee to the ICO.

The amount that you are required to pay will depend on a number of factors such as your number of staff and annual turnover. For most organisations the fee is either £40 or £60. The highest level of fee is £2,900.

The ICO have produced a self assessment tool which will assist you in establishing whether...

As you can imagine, we deal a lot with issues where the employer has “reached the end of their tether” in managing a problem like capability.  Sometimes we are involved throughout a process, which will either lead to an improvement in performance or potentially dismissal.  Others however, we are called in at the latter stages to advise on the capability procedure at the point at which dismissal is contemplated.  Often, the reluctance of a manger to have the open and frank discussion at the outset, leads to a situation whereby the individual may struggle to accept any failings in their...

Flowers and Others v East of England Ambulance Trust: NHS Contractual Terms Require Non-Guaranteed and Voluntary Overtime to be Included in Holiday Pay Calculations

This case arose from the Claimant employees, employed by the Trust in a range of roles concerning the provision of ambulance services, contending that the calculation of their holiday pay should take account of both non-guaranteed overtime and voluntary overtime.

The Employment Tribunal (“ET”) allowed the contractual claims in respect of non-guaranteed overtime, but dismissed the claims in respect of voluntary overtime, with the ET accepting the Trust’s argument that voluntary overtime was in a different category....

In Patel v Folkestone Nursing Home Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 1689 the Court of Appeal has held that there was no dismissal where a contractual disciplinary appeal was successful.

The Court of Appeal has upheld the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal that there was no dismissal where an employee who, following his appeal under a contractual disciplinary procedure, was told that the decision to dismiss him had been revoked. This was despite the appeal only addressing one of the two disciplinary allegations that had resulted in his dismissal.

The Claimant was a care assistant, dismissed over two charges of misconduct. He appealed under a...

In its consideration of two similar cases involving residential care home workers, Royal Mencap Society v Claire Tomlinson Blake and John Shannon v Jaikisham and Prithee Rampersad (t/a Clifton House Residential Home), the Court of Appeal held that employees who sleep overnight as part of their duties are only entitled to the National Minimum Wage (“NMW”) while they are awake and working, not for the entire duration of their sleep-in shift.

The Royal Mencap Society went to the Court of Appeal in March this year to challenge the Employment Tribunal ruling from 2016, which had been upheld on Appeal to the Employment...

ACAS have published new guidance relating to overtime, which covers five key areas summarised below. 

1. Is overtime compulsory or voluntary?

The Guidance covers, and gives examples, of the following types of overtime:

a) Voluntary Overtime

This is where there is no obligation upon an employer to offer overtime, and no corresponding obligation upon the worker to accept it if offered.

b) Guaranteed Overtime

This is where an employer is under a contractual obligation to offer overtime to the worker, who in turn must accept it.

c) Non-Guaranteed Overtime

This is where there is no contractual obligation for overtime to be offered by the employer, but if...

In Pimlico Plumbers v Gary Smith the Supreme Court considered an employment tribunal’s decision regarding the employment status of Mr Smith who was engaged by Pimlico Plumbers purportedly on a self employed basis.

In 2011 Mr Smith issued several claims in the tribunal. The tribunal found that Mr Smith was not an employee but was a 'worker' and 'in employment' within the meaning of the Equality Act. This finding was upheld by the EAT and the Court of Appeal.

For Mr Smith to qualify as a worker, the Supreme Court had to agree that he had undertaken to...

Many businesses are now using the American military term VUCA to describe the commercial world and the expectations regarding change. Martha Lane Fox told the CIPD conference last year that the pace of change right now is at the slowest it will ever be again. The world is moving quickly.

V – Volatile

U – Uncertain

C – Complex

A – Ambiguous

If I had asked anyone 5 years ago if they expected the international political world to look as it is today, I don’t think many would have predicted it. Why is this of any interest to me as an HR Practitioner?

Firstly, am I...

An Employment Tribunal has awarded a Claimant £11,465.81 following the recent decision which found that the Respondent,  the optician chain ‘Scrivens’, unlawfully asked the Claimant to repay £11,000 in training fees incurred during her employment. The Employment Tribunal upheld claims for pregnancy and maternity discrimination, constructive dismissal, and unlawful deduction from wages.

The background to this case is that in 2010 the Claimant, Ms Walworth, entered into a Training Agreement with her Scrivens to allow her to gain the qualifications required to progress to a more senior role.