News

National Minimum Wage increase From Thursday 1st October 2015, the adult rate of the National Minimum Wage (‘NMW’) has risen from £6.50 to £6.70 per hour, a rise of 20 pence. The following NMW rates apply: The rate for 18 to 20 years olds has increased by 17 pence to £5.30 per hour The rate […]

The government has recently published the Immigration Bill 2015-16 (which can be accessed here.) The Bill implements a number of the policies which were introduced in the Conservative Party Manifesto, such as measures to tackle illegal working and support the enforcement of labour market rules. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has announced that […]

The Immigration Bill, which was published on 17th September 2015, introduced a new legal requirement for all public sector employees who work in a public-facing role to speak ‘fluent English’. This will include social workers, police officers, teaching staff and assistants, Jobcentre Plus workers and local government employees. The recent requirement will apply to both […]

“Could HMRC proposals affect the flexible workforce?” was the topic of the debate at a meeting held by the Association of Recruitment Consultancies (ARC) on 23rd September in London, and on a show of hands every attendee thought it would. The debate, attended by two speakers from HMRC, a Treasury representative, and speakers from the […]

Earlier this year the Advocate General recommended that travel time to the first customer and from the last customer is to be considered “working time” for mobile workers. The Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) has now brought this non-binding recommendation into law. (Click here for those who would like to refresh their […]

Social media is an increasingly popular and growing area due to the number of benefits it offers to businesses, ranging from the ability to communicate with a wide audience, to using it for recruitment purposes. Recent case law demonstrates the importance to employers of having a clear social media policy in place, to ensure that […]

Connecting with clients on social media has a number of attractive benefits for a business. Statistics from Twitter suggest that 24% of job seekers form negative opinions of companies that do not have a social media presence. Luddites may be shaking their heads but the statistics speak for themselves: On Saturday 4th August 2015 a […]

The trade union Unison has lost its third challenge of the legality of the introduction of fees in the Employment Tribunal (ET) and Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT). The fees for bringing employment claims came into force on 29th July 2013. Under this fee regime, depending on which employment legislation has allegedly been breached, claimants have […]

Running any internal procedures could be very stressful for all parties involved, be it for investigation, disciplinary, grievance, sickness absence or performance management purposes. Even if the employer has solid evidence and good reason for subjecting employees to a formal procedure, employees can feel targeted and suspicious of perceived ulterior motives of the employer. A […]

We have all seen Facebook posts in our newsfeeds that would make even the most jaded of us cringe. Facebook has been around for nearly a decade and even though we have caught on to privacy settings and scrutinising pictures and post tags, there is still a lot of published material out there.  If that […]

This issue was discussed in the recent case of Reed Employment v HMRC at the Court of Appeal.   Reed is an employment business which employs its temporary workers. Prior to 1998, there was no available tax relief on a worker’s travel expenses to a temporary place of work and Reed paid its employed temps […]

In the case of Coles v Ministry of Defence, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (‘EAT’) had to consider whether the right under R.13 of the Agency Worker Regulations 2010 (‘AWR’) for agency workers to be informed of any relevant vacant post with the hirer extends to a requirement to offer the agency worker more favourable treatment […]

Following a review of termination payments by the Office of Tax Simplifications in 2014, which concluded that the current system is both confusing and uncertain, the government has published a consultation on this area. More often than not employers want to pay the correct amount of tax but simply can’t get to grips with the […]

Lawspeed is pleased to announce that a representative from BIS will speak at its innovative compliance seminar, to be held on the 23rd September in London. This seminar is aimed at business owners and senior managers, and will address tax, compliance, post-termination restrictions and social media issues currently affecting recruitment businesses and other sector operators. […]