Need to Know: Employment and HR Newsletter – Edition 17

Employment Tribunal statistics

As employment lawyers, we have certainly noticed an increase in Employment Tribunal (ET) litigation in recent years, following the sharp decline after the introduction of the fees regime in 2013.

We now have the Ministry of Justice’s latest statistics which give us more information about recent trends and the number of claims brought in the year April 2018 to March 2019, and also the quarterly statistics for the period April to June 2019.

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I May Be Working Illegally But…

Can somebody who is working illegally assert contractual employment rights? Alex Bartlett takes a look at the Court of Appeal’s answer to that question in Okedina v Chikale, a decision which impacts on employers and employees alike.

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Holiday pay for part-year workers on permanent contracts is higher than we (ACAS) thought

Aleksandra Traczyk analyses the recent Court of Appeal case of Harpur Trust v Brazel which considered holiday pay for part-year workers on permanent contracts – which can include zero-hours workers on permanent contracts. On 21 August 2019, all mentions of holiday pay calculator were removed from BEIS guidance online while the service is under review, as a result of this decision.

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To view our short webinar on the case, and what the implications are for employers click here.

HR Bullets

• The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has updated its guidance on timescales for responding to data subject requests, holding that the one-month response period begins on the day of receipt rather than the day after.
• In Barrasso v New Look Retailers, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that an employee’s ‘employee shareholder’ status is not necessarily terminated by entering into a director’s service agreement if the terms of the later service agreement are inconsistent with the original employee shareholder agreement.
• Following a year-long inquiry, the Women and Equalities Committee has recently published its report concluding that the approach to enforcement of equality law is no longer fit for purpose and a ‘critical mass’ of cases should be developed to inform employers about their legal duties and make adherence to existing equality law a priority for all organisations.
• The Employment Appeal Tribunal in Department of Work & Pensions v Robinson held that an employer who unsuccessfully tried to resolve a visually impaired employee’s difficulties in using its software was not liable for disability discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.
• The Government Equalities Office has published its roadmap for tackling gender equality proposals considering issues such as the gender pay gap.
• The Court of Appeal in L v Q Ltd  has held that, with the exception of national security cases, it would go against the principle of open justice to withhold details of a claimant’s disabilities from the online judgment register, although anonymising the names of the parties and witnesses is permissible.
• The Pension Regulator (TPR) has fined an employer £350,000 for failing to fully comply with its pension re-enrolment duties, according to an anonymous case study in the TPR’s latest quarterly compliance and enforcement bulletin.
• Tribunal claims submitted with the incorrect ACAS early conciliation certificate should be rejected according to the Employment Appeal Tribunal in E.ON Control Solutions Ltd v Caspall.