Employment Law Update: Changes from 6 April 2020 – The Employment Rights (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2019

A Written Statement of Terms or Section 1 Statement is a written statement of certain terms required to be given by the employer to the employee setting out the statutory particulars.

Current Law:

  • An employer is only obliged to provide a written statement of terms to employees who have been continuously employed for more than one month within two months of the commencement of employment.

New Law:

  • Employers will be obliged to provide a written statement of terms to employees from the first day of employment.

From 6 April 2020, the majority of particulars will need to be given in a single statement before the employee commences work. This means employers will need to consider the written statement/contract of employment prior to or during the recruitment process.

Holiday Pay Reference Period

If a worker does not have “normal working hours” their statutory annual leave is a rate of a week’s pay for each week of leave. This can lead to complex calculations for employers and employees.

Current Law:

  • Currently, a week’s pay is calculated as an average of all remuneration earned in the previous 12 working weeks (the current reference period).

New Law:

  • The reference period will be increased from 12 weeks to 52 weeks. When calculating holiday pay employers will be required to use the previous 52 weeks where a worker has worked or received pay (ignoring any weeks the worker has not worked or received pay)

This change is particularly aimed at seasonal and similar workers in order to level out the variation in pay.

Parental Bereavement Law

Currently, there is no statutory entitlement to parental bereavement leave.

New Law:

  • The Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018 provides for at least two weeks’ leave for employees following the loss of a child under the age of 18 or a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Employees with 26 weeks’ continuous service will be entitled to two weeks of paid leave at the statutory rate and other employees will be entitled to unpaid leave.

Other changes such as IR35 are due to be implemented. If you have any queries or want to find out how these changes may affect your business, please contact Talbot Walker’s employment team in Hampshire on 01264 721 706 or email sadlem@talbotwalker.co.uk.