The Government have announced that the Fixed Term Work Regulations will not come into force on 10 July 2002 as intended (and as required by the EC Directive). This is because the relevant enabling provisions are in the Employment Bill, which is still progressing through Parliament. The Government now aims to bring the Fixed Term Work Regulations into force on 1 October 2002. For further information, see our e-mail update dated 22 January 2002 and the DTI website.
The Government has not stated whether the amendments to the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 to bring them in line with the Fixed Term Work Directive (see e-mail update dated 8 March 2002) will also be put back from 30 June.
Start dates for family-friendly rights
These rights are also contained in the Employment Bill. The Government have announced that, subject to Parliamentary approval, the start dates for the new rights will be as follows:
For births where the Expected Week of Childbirth is on or after 6 April 2003 (whether or not the child is born prematurely), mothers will be entitled to the new maternity leave rights (26 weeks ordinary maternity leave and, if they have sufficient service, 26 weeks additional maternity leave) and fathers with sufficient service will be entitled to the new paternity leave and pay rights (up to 2 weeks at the flat rate of maternity pay).
For births where the Expected Week of Childbirth is before 6 April, fathers will still be entitled to the new leave and pay rights if the child is in fact born on or after 6 April. (The same does not apply for mothers.)
The flat rate of maternity pay will be £75 per week for payments until 5 April and thereafter £100 per week. Paternity pay will be £75 per week for all paternity leave periods starting before 6 April (in the event of a premature birth), and £100 per week for paternity leave starting on or after 6 April.
The same dates will apply in respect of parents adopting a child – where the child is placed with the adopters on or after 6 April, one of the couple will be entitled to paid paternity leave and the other to paid adoption leave (analogous to maternity leave).
Details can be seen on the DTI website. The duty to consider requests for flexible working will also apply from April 2003.
Progress of Employment Bill
The Bill has now completed its Grand Committee stage in the House of Lords and the House of Lords report stage has been confirmed as starting on 30 May and 11 June. The amendments tabled for debate at this stage can be seen on the House of Lords website.
Employment Agencies
The Government has stated that it will shortly be issuing the revised draft Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations and will then commence a further consultation exercise. See e-mail update dated 2 February 2001 for information on the 2001 draft regulations.
Information Commissioner's Employment Practices Data Protection Code – Part 2
The latest information is that the publication date for Part 2 has now slipped to the first week of June. It may be that this is connected with the letter apparently sent by the Better Regulation Task Force to the Commissioner strongly criticising the Code, copied to three government ministers. It has also been reported that the Commissioner has offered minor concessions on the third part of the Code on monitoring, confirming that statements that employers should provide workers with private e-mail accounts and not monitor covertly except with police involvement are just guidelines.
© Herbert Smith 2002
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