1. In May 2011 the government issued a consultation paper containing the following proposals:

Flexible Parental Leave

• 18 weeks maternity leave and pay – in one continuous block around birth.
• Four weeks of parental leave and pay exclusive to each parent to be taken in the first year.
• 30 weeks of additional parental leave available to either parent - of which 17 weeks would be paid and can be broken in blocks between parents.

Flexible Working

• Extending the right to request for all workers who have been with their employer for 26 weeks.
• The Government will consider publishing a statutory Code of Practice for businesses and will propose that employers should be allowed to take into account employees individual circumstances when considering conflicting requests.
• There are no plans to alter the current 8 business reasons for a business to turn down a request.
• The Government recognises that legislation is not the only answer to promoting flexible working practices. Non-legislative measures are being developed to promote flexible working opportunities both for those with a job and for those looking for one.

Working Time Regulations

• Where someone has been on sick leave, the government proposes to allow employers to limit the ability to carry over annual leave to four weeks of leave.
• The proposals will also mean that employers can if they wish insist that leave untaken due to sickness absence must be taken in the current leave year, where possible, rather than being carried forward. They also propose to provide additional flexibility to allow employers to defer that leave until the following year when this can be justified in terms of business need.

Equal Pay

• Employment Tribunals that have found an employer to have discriminated on gender in relation to pay will order the employer to conduct a pay audit and publish their results. Except in some circumstances, such as where an audit has already been conducted.

See: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/employment-matters/docs/c/11-699-consultation-modern-workplaces.pdf

2. In November 2011 the government issued its response to the consultation on Resolving Workplace Disputes which it had initiated in January 2011. The main conclusions are:

1. The Government will bring forward an amendment to clarify s.147 of the Equality Act, to provide reassurance to parties that compromise agreements can safely be used.  They will consult in coming months on amending section 203(3)(b) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 to enable compromise agreements to cover existing and future claims without requiring long lists of causes of action, as well as introducing a system of “protected conversations” that would allow employers and employees to have open and frank conversations with each other about any employment issue without the existence of a formal dispute.

2. The Government intends to introduce the requirement for all potential tribunal claims to be lodged with Acas in the first instance. Acas will offer parties the opportunity to engage in early conciliation in an attempt to resolve the matter without recourse to an Employment Tribunal. Where early conciliation is refused, or is unsuccessful, the claimant will be able to proceed to lodge a claim.

3. The Government has asked Mr Justice Underhill, outgoing President of the Employment Appeals Tribunal, to lead a fundamental review of the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure, to address concerns that the Rules have become increasingly complex and unwieldy over time and are therefore no longer fit for purpose.

4. The Government intends to extend the qualification period for unfair dismissal from one to two years.

5. The Government intends to retain the automatic mechanism for up-rating tribunal awards and statutory redundancy payments, but will modify the formula to round to the nearest pound across the limits at the earliest opportunity.

See: http://www.bis.gov.uk/Consultations/resolving-workplace-disputes

3. As part of its ‘Red Tape Challenge’ the government announced further initiatives in November 2011:

Of the 159 regulations examined in the employment theme of the Red Tape Challenge more than 70 regulations, over 40 per cent, are to be merged, simplified or scrapped.
The Government will:

(a) Publish a call for evidence on proposals to simplify the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) - TUPE - rules which many businesses say are too complex and bureaucratic.
(b) Close a whistleblowing case law loophole which allows employees to blow the whistle about their own personal work contract.
(c) Merge 17 National Minimum Wage regulations into one set.
(d) Consult in the spring to streamline the current regulatory regime for the recruitment sector.
(e) Create a universally portable CRB check that can be viewed by employers instantly online.

See: http://www.bis.gov.uk/news/topstories/2011/Nov/reforms-to-job-laws-to-help-business

4. In November 2011 the government issued a ‘Call for evidence’ on the subject of collective redundancy consultation rules.

See: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/employment-matters/docs/c/11-1371-call-for-evidence-collective-redundancies.pdf

5. Also in November 2011 the government issued a call for evidence on the effectiveness of transfer of undertakings (protection of employment - TUPE) regulations 2006.

See: http://www.bis.gov.uk/Consultations/call-for-evidence-effectiveness-of-current-tupe-regulations?cat=open