Legislation changes after April

If you are involved in a transfer taking place on or after 1 May 2014 you need to know that employee liability information must be given at least 28 days (increasing from 14 days) before the date of the transfer. If you have not built this into your timing you need to consider how you deal with it and make sure you take this longer period into account in future.

Claimants in cases lodged at the employment tribunal on or after 6 May 2014 have to submit details via Acas early conciliation before they can present the claim. If you want to know more about Acas early conciliation see our earlier article or sign up for our webinar on 6 May 2014.

From 30 June 2014 all employees, with a minimum of 26 weeks’ service, will be able to request flexible working. The employee will no longer need to be a parent or carer.

Also, the statutory procedure for considering flexible working requests will be replaced with a statutory code of practice from Acas. Under the Code, currently in draft form, an employer will simply have a duty to consider requests ‘carefully looking at your business and weighing these against any adverse business impact of implementing’ the changes the employee seeks.

Have a look at the draft statutory code and the accompanying ‘best practice’ Acas guide, ‘Handling Requests To Work Flexibly In A Reasonable Manner: An Acas Guide’.

If you are an employer with 10 or less employees you can inform and consult directly with affected employees if there is no recognised independent trade union or existing appropriate representatives. This only applies to transfers taking place on or after 31 July 2014.