New entitlement for one weeks unpaid carers leave
There is currently no statutory right to carers leave, but for employees who are providing and/or arranging care, the Carers Leave Act 2023 will introduce a new entitlement of one weeks unpaid leave per year, which will be available to eligible employees as a day one right.
Key aspects of this new legislation will be:
· Requests can be for consecutive, or non-consecutive, half days or full days giving employees flexibility about how they take the leave;
· Employees will need to give written notice of their intention to take carers leave and will need to confirm their entitlement to take it;
· Employers can postpone a request if the operation of the business would be unduly interrupted. If this was to happen notice of such postponement must be given before the leave is due to begin, together with an explanation as to why it is necessary to postpone the request; and
· In the same way as other types of family leave, employees will be protected from detriment and dismissal because they take, or seek to take carers leave.
It is anticipated that this legislation will come into force on 6 April 2024.
Redundancy protection extension for pregnancy, maternity, adoption and shared parental leave
The introduction of the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023 will provide further protection during pregnancy or family leave to enhance job security within the context of redundancies.
The law currently allows for employees on maternity leave, shared parental leave or adoption leave to have special protection in a redundancy situation. This special protection means these employees have the right to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy if one is available before being made redundant, thus giving employees on these types of leave priority access to redeployment opportunities compared to other redundant employees.
However, the protection under the new legislation shall be extended to:
· pregnant employees and so as soon as the employer has been notified of the pregnancy the pregnant employee shall benefit from this special protection;
· six months after the mother’s maternity leave ends (the special protection currently ends as soon as the maternity leave ends), as well as six months after an employee’s adoption leave ends in the case of adoption; and
· six months after shared parental leave has ended provided the parent has taken a period of at least 6 consecutive weeks of shared parental leave.
The extension of the protected period to cover pregnancy will apply where the employer is informed of the pregnancy on or after 6 April 2024 and the extension of the protection period will apply to any maternity leave, adoption leave or shared parental leave ending on or after 6 April 2024.
The regulations are currently in draft form and may change, but employers should be mindful of these upcoming changes if they are contemplating redundancies in the new year as this will need to be factored into any redundancy process. Policies relating to redundancy, maternity leave, adoption leave and shared parental leave will also need to be updated to reflect this change.
New flexible working entitlements for employees
The Flexible Working (Amendment) Regulations 2023 has been laid before parliament meaning that there will be changes to the flexible working regime.
The following changes will be contained within the new regulations:
· An entitlement to make two requests in any twelve-month period (currently it is one request);
· Employers will need to communicate a decision within two months (currently it is three months);
· Employees will not have to explain what effect, if any, they think the requested change will have on the business and how it should be dealt with by the business.
It had been indicated by the Government that it will also create a day one right to request flexible working, but at present, this is not explicitly stated within the Bill and would need to be dealt with under separate legislation. The current requirement is that someone needs to have been employed for 26 weeks to make a flexible working request and for now it looks like this will remain the position.
The changes will come into effect for flexible working requests made on or after 6 April 2024. Ahead of these changes those dealing with flexible working requests in your business should familiarise themselves with the changes so that requests are properly dealt with and flexible working policies should be updated to reflect the changes.
‘Rolled up’ holiday pay – a new way of paying holiday
The concept of rolled up holiday pay is not new and is where rather than receiving holiday pay when annual leave is taken, a worker receives enhanced pay on top of their salary to cover their accrued holiday pay. It is currently unlawful for employers to pay holiday pay in this way. However, for those working irregular hours (e.g. zero hour workers) and part-year workers (e.g. term time workers) this is due to change.
This will come into force for employers with leave years commencing on or after 1 April 2024, meaning that if your holiday year is January to December each year, this will come into force for your business when the leave year on 1 January 2025 starts. Employers will therefore have the choice between paying irregular hours workers and part-year workers their holiday pay when they take holiday or paying their workers for accrued holiday pay each time they are paid their salary. If it’s the latter and a rolled-up holiday approach is adopted, workers must still be permitted to take holiday, but they will not be paid at the time they take it.
Rolled up holiday pay is deemed by many to be a better and less burdensome approach for those working irregular hours and/or only working part of the year, as it avoids employers having to make complicated annual leave calculations.
If your business chooses to adopt rolled up holiday pay, you will need to inform your workers of the decision, and payments will need to be clearly distinguished from the normal working hours on payslips.
Repeal of Covid-19 holiday carry over rules
Emergency legislation was introduced in March 2020 which relaxed the restrictions on carrying over holiday to enable businesses to have more flexibility during the pandemic. From 1 January 2024, the new legislation under the WTR removes these emergency provisions as they are no longer needed. Employees who have untaken carried over holiday due to the pandemic will have up to 31 March 2024 to use the holiday.
Change to TUPE consultations
Following a consultation in early 2023, the Government has announced its intention to change the consultation obligations so that there can be a direct consultation with affected staff for businesses with fewer than 50 employees or businesses of any size with fewer than 10 employees transferring. This means that consultations can be conducted with employees directly rather than through representatives. The direct consultation will only apply where there are no existing employee representatives in place.
These reforms are likely to be welcomed by employers as consulting via representatives can be burdensome and time consuming where the number of employees who are transferring is small. These changes will make the process more straightforward, and there will be no need for an election process, together with allowing the consultation process to start much sooner.
Regulations enforcing this have been laid before parliament and are expected to come into force on 1 January 2024.
Paternity Leave
Employees will have new rights where a baby's Expected Week of Childbirth (EWC) is on or after 6 April 2024, or for children expected to be placed with an adopter, occurs on or after that date. Currently employees may take just one week in total or two consecutive weeks of paternity leave. From 6 April they will, alternatively, have the right to take paternity leave as two separate one-week blocks. The leave can then be taken at any time in the 52 weeks after birth or adoption (rather than having to take leave in the 56 days following birth). They will only need to give 28 days’ notice of their intention to take paternity leave (reduced from the previous position that required notice to be given 15 weeks before the EWC).
Tipping
From 1 July 2024 employers will have a new obligation to ensure that 100% of tips are paid to workers in full without deductions and that the allocation is what the legislation describes as “fair” duty to ensure that all qualifying tips are "allocated fairly" to workers (including agency workers).
A draft statutory code of practice was published on 15 December 2023 to help employers and workers understand this legislation which is open for consultation until 22 February 2024. It aims to give hospitality employers and workers and other sectors that use tipping practices more detail on fair and transparent allocation of “qualifying tips”.
National Minimum Wage
National Minimum Wage is increasing from 1st April 2024 to the following rates:
The National Living Wage (for over 21 year olds) will increase to £11.44.
The National Minimum Wage will rise across all age groups, including:
- An increase from £10.42 to £11.44 for over 21 year olds
- An increase from £7.49 to £8.60 for 18-20 year olds
- An increase from £5.28 to £6.40 for Under 18s
- An increase from £5.28 to £6.40 for Apprentices
Statutory Entitlements
Statutory Entitlement | 2023 rate | 2024 rate |
Statutory shared parental pay (ShPP) Statutory rate or 90% of employee's weekly earnings if this is lower.
| £172.48
| £184.03 |
Statutory maternity pay (SMP) First six weeks – 90% of employee's average weekly earnings. Remaining weeks at the statutory rate or 90% of employee's weekly earnings if this is lower.
| £172.48
| £184.03 |
Statutory adoption pay (SAP) First six weeks – 90% of employee's average weekly earnings. Remaining weeks at the statutory rate or 90% of employee's weekly earnings if this is lower.
| £172.48
| £184.03 |
Statutory paternity pay (SPP) Statutory rate or 90% of employee's weekly earnings if this is lower.
| £172.48
| £184.03 |
Parental Bereavement Weekly rate
| £172.48 | £184.03 |
Statutory sick pay (SSP) Weekly rate
| £109.40 | £116.85 |
What to do next?
If you feel that any of these changes will apply to your business and you are not sure how to respond to the changes, please get in touch, we can assist you any changes.
Please email hello@ricohr.co.uk with your query
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