Modern Slavery Act – commercial organisations must prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement for each financial year in which their turnover is more than £36million. This is now live as it relates to financial ears ending on or after 1 March 2016. The statement must include both your own staff practices and due diligence on your supply chains. Clients are feeling the impact of this where they have customers with a turnover of more than £36million and those customers are starting to make due diligence enquiries of their supply chain – if you have been asked to produce a modern slavery statement for a customer then please let ChrisTaylor@eatonsmith.co.uk know and he will guide you through this.
Apprenticeship Levy – consultation on this has recently concluded and it will take effect from 6 April 2017. Employers fall within the levy payment if their total payroll exceeded £2.8million in the previous tax year and/or is expected to reach £3million in the current tax year. The rate of the levy will be 0.5% of the total gross payroll which an annual allowance of £15,000 (£1,250 pcm) that may be offset against it. Companies paying the levy will be able to access funding to pay for apprenticeship training from approved organisations.
The Trade Union Act comes into force in 2017 and requires at least 50% of those entitled to vote in a ballot must vote for it to be valid, plus 50% of those entitled to vote in a ballot must vote yes where there will be impact on important public services.
Gender Pay Gap Reporting is now delayed to April 2017, which means that the first reports will be due in April 2018 for the 12 months April 2017 – April 2018. The obligation to report only applies if you have 250 employees or more. If you do, then you have to publish details about differences in pay and bonuses for men and women. Let me know if this might apply to you.
The Parental Bereavement Leave (Statutory Entitlement) Bill 2016-2017 is currently going through parliament and will give parents a statutory right to two weeks’ paid leave after suffering the loss of a child.