Employment Law and HR Under a Labour Government – What are the Proposed Changes?

This summary is based on Judicium’s Employment Law ‘Sofa Session’ from the 18th of September, with our resident expert Jenny Salero. This session focused on the proposed and confirmed changes that the new Government have announced, how these may impact schools, and any ways you can start to prepare for these proposed changes.

What We Know is Changing:

Updates to Pay, Appraisal and Capability

The DfE were very busy in the summer updating its guidance on appraisals, capability, managing pay and agreeing the teacher pay award.

We are currently awaiting an updated STPCD for 2024/2025, but this is likely to be published in October 2024 (and backdated to 1st September 2024).

The newly drafted guidance appears to give schools the options of retaining performance related pay or the choice to move away from it.

The updated guidance makes clear that any pay decisions for the end of this year’s appraisal cycle 2023/2024 should be taken on the basis of PRP in the usual way. However, moving forward, the requirements for objectives to lead to PRP outcomes for teachers and leaders will be removed. Having said that, the statutory requirements to decide in regard to pay following an appraisal will still remain.

It appears the intention behind the proposed changes to updated guidance in respect of appraisal and capability is to ensure that any process is support and as far as possible, minimises workloads for those involved.

Although we are still awaiting the final STPCD to be published next month, we are suggesting all schools and trusts start to think about how they may wish to approach PRP moving forward and whether this is something as an organisation you would wish to retain or remove.

Poll 1

What We Think is Changing:

Extension of right not to be unfairly dismissed?

The Bill announced in July 2024 proposes to give employees the right not to be unfairly dismissed from the first day of employment. Currently, employees need two years of service (a year and 51 weeks) to bring a claim for unfair dismissal (save for some exceptions). Historically, the lowest threshold was 6 months, thus this would be a significant change.

The full details of the proposed changes remain unclear, but there has been mention of employers still being able to dismiss an employee who’s within a probation period. However, this would only be able to take place following a fair, transparent process.

It is likely this change will lead to a significant increase in unfair dismissal claims. It is therefore crucial you start looking at your school or trust’s policies, procedures and training for staff on utilising probationary periods.

In addition, although this wasn’t mentioned in the King’s Speech, Labour also mentioned earlier this year the possibility of changing the position on employment status. Currently there are three categories: employee, worker and self-employed. If the proposal to have one category of worker alongside the self-employed does move ahead, this would again have a significant impact on the number of Tribunal claims moving forward.

Restrictions to ‘fire and re-hire’

Judicium clients will have received a Newsletter covering this and outlining the new Code of Practice. However, Labour do not think this guidance goes far enough and have stated this would be replaced. Full details of what these changes may look like are currently unknown but are likely to require more from employers before any changes are made.

Extension to Family Friendly Rights

• Making ‘Parental Leave’ a day one right. It is still unclear whether this means actual parental leave, or other leave parents may be able to take.
• Creating a statutory right to bereavement leave.
• Introducing pay for the newly created Carer’s Leave (the statutory requirement is currently for time, not time and pay).
• Preventing the dismissal of maternity leave returners for 6 months from the date of their return to work, save for some circumstances. This is a further and additional change from that which was announced in April 2024 in relation to redundancy.
• Strengthening the position on flexible working to ensure that it is genuinely a day one right.

Removal of Zero Hour Contracts

There are currently no details on what may amount to an ‘exploitative’ contract or any minimum number of hours that may be required.

The Right to Disconnect

This is a proposed change that has been publicised a lot in the media and is already common practice in many countries across Europe. Although this was specifically mentioned in the King’s speech it is something that could still find it’s way into the Employment Rights Bill as the aim is to ensure that staff switch off, improve work life balance and help to avoid staff burn out.

Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill

• Extending the right to equal pay to cover race and disability, not just sex. However, generally speaking equal pay claims are much harder to bring than ‘straight forward’ discrimination claims and this may therefore not proceed.
• Mandatory pay reporting extended to cover ethnicity and disability pay reporting for larger employers with 250+ staff.

Potential extension on time limits to bring a Tribunal claim

Although not mentioned as part of the King’s Speech Labour have previously suggested that they would look to increase the general time limit to bring a claim to the Employment Tribunal from three months (generally speaking) to six months. This coupled, with some of the other proposals mentioned above could have a significant impact on employers in respect of the risk of claims.

Top Tips

1. Take steps to review your current recruitment process and strategy, to try to avoid hiring any staff in haste or at the last minute.
2. Ensure a probationary period is added to all contracts of employment and that you have a policy to mirror the terms of the contract, that managers have been trained on.
3. Undertake a review of appraisal and capability policies to ensure they are robust and you are utilising these as far as is possible.
4. Take the time to decide as school or trust what you will do in relation to performance related pay for the next appraisal cycle.
5. Consider whether you need to or should put in place a policy in respect of working outside of hours, email communications and messages

Bonus: If you are a larger employer with more than 250 staff, you may wish to use your HR team to undertake a review of salaries to look for any potential gaps and disparities which may impact on colleagues that are disabled or BAME. If any gaps are highlighted, take steps to address these as soon as possible and before you may be required to publish any data relating to this.

Helpful Info:

For more information on Judicium’s Employment Law Advisory Service please visit: https://www.judiciumeducation.co.uk/hr-advisory-service

If you require any support in any of these steps or would like to talk to someone surrounding some support for your school, please do not hesitate to call us on 0345 548 7000 or email georgina.decostajudicium.com.

If you’d like to review Judicium’s forthcoming sofa sessions, please click here.

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