News

You will recall that we have looked at the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices in past bulletins. Now the BEIS and Work and Pensions committees have made recommendations adopting many of the themes in the Taylor Review. These recommendations include:

• Draft legislation to help clarify the distinctions between employee, worker and self-employed. In my March update email and April seminar I talked in detail about the factors that the Employment Tribunals and HMRC will look at when deciding which category a person falls into. The draft legislation incorporates some of these factors including whether the person is required to give personal service or can provide a substitute, whether the person is controlled by the employer or can choose their own methods of working, and whether the person is integrated into the employer’s business.
• A recommendation that employers with large numbers of self-employed staff (such as Uber) are subject to a presumption that their self-employed staff are actually workers (and therefore entitled to rest breaks and minimum wage) unless proved otherwise.
• A recommendation that employers have to pay a higher hourly rate to workers on zero hour contracts as a penalty for not guaranteeing those workers any hours.
• An amendment to the law to make it easier for a temporary worker to accrue continuous service. At the moment, if a worker is not given work for a period of one full week (Sunday to Saturday) and does not have an expectation of returning to work after that week then their continuous service is broken. The committees would like to increase this break period from one week to one month.
• An amendment to the law to give workers contracts. At the moment, an employee is entitled to receive a written statement of particulars within two months of starting – this usually takes the form of a contract of employment. The committees would like to extend this so that workers also receive a written statement of particulars and these statements must be given out within a week of starting. The contracts for employees and workers will need to be clearly drawn up so that the difference in status is apparent. If this recommendation is taken up, I would be happy to assist with this.