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UK – Employment law changes in October

23 September 2014

There has been a raft of employment law changes already this year; including the extension of the right to request flexible working, and the introduction of early conciliation, which provides an opportunity to settle workplace disputes without going to court, reports personneltoday.com.

While employers across the country may be busy preparing for the introduction of shared parental leave in April 2015, it is important not to overlook the employment law changes that are just around the corner.

The four legal changes scheduled to come into force in October, according to XpertHR, include:

Antenatal rights for fathers and partners to take time off work - Fathers and partners will be entitled to time off to accompany a pregnant woman to an antenatal appointment on up to two occasions. Employees will be eligible to take advantage of the new right immediately without accruing a minimum period of service.

Although the right extends to agency workers, a minimum service requirement applies to trigger eligibility in this context.

Employment tribunals must order equal pay audits - Where an equal pay claim is submitted on, or after, 1 October 2010, and the employment tribunal finds that there has been an equal pay breach, it must order the employer to carry out an equal pay audit unless an exception applies.

The exceptions set out in the Equality Act 2010 (Equal Pay Audits) Regulations 2014 relate to, among other things, whether or not the employer has recently carried out an audit that meets certain requirements, and whether or not the benefits delivered by the audit would exceed the disadvantages of conducting it.

National minimum wage increases - The national minimum wage increases from £6.31 to £6.50 with effect from 1 October 2014. The youth rate increases from £5.03 to £5.13 per hour.

Reservists better protected against unfair dismissal - With effect from 1 October 2014, where an employee is dismissed exclusively (or mainly) because he or she is a member of the reserve force, the normal two-year service requirement for bringing an unfair dismissal claim does not apply, and an employee may pursue a claim immediately in these circumstances.