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Legal update: Employment law changes from 6 April and beyond

In the last week of February, Parliament passed two important pieces of legislation which, from 6 April, will introduce a new right for employees to take carer’s leave and will make changes to the way paternity leave can be taken.

Last month also saw new regulations passed which affect the right to request flexible working, as well as changes to the protections available to certain employees when facing redundancy situations, both of which will also come into force from 6 April 2024.

In this legal update, we’ll be looking in detail at these changes and explaining what they mean for your business. We’ll also be looking ahead at other employment law changes coming into force later in the year.

The April 2024 changes covered in this update are:

We’ll then go on to look at the following changes in the pipeline:

Carer’s leave

Last week, the Carer’s Leave Regulations 2024 completed their passage through parliament, introducing a new right for all employees to take up to one week of unpaid leave every 12 months to provide or arrange for care for a dependant with a long-term care need. This will come in from 6 April 2024.

The new right will apply to all employees (it won’t apply to other workers). There’s no service requirement, so employees will be entitled to take the leave from day one of their employment.

The leave can be taken very flexibly – in blocks of days, individual days, or even half-days – and the entitlement is measured on a 12-month rolling period.

  • What’s the meaning of a dependant with a long-term care need?

    The meaning of dependant is the same as the one used for emergency time off for dependants:

    • a child, parent, spouse/civil partner or
    •  someone living in their household (other than a lodger, tenant or employee) or
    • someone who reasonably relies on them to provide or arrange care for them.

    In addition to this, the person must have a long-term care need. This is defined as either:

    • a disability (within the meaning of the Equality Act)
    • a care need related to their old age or
    • an illness or injury (either physical or mental) which has lasted or is likely to last for more than three months.
  •  
    Does the employee have to give notice?

    Yes, employees must give a minimum of three days’ notice or twice the amount of time they want to take off (whichever is longer).

    For example, if Caitlin wants to take half a day’s carer’s leave, she needs to give three days’ notice. But if she wants to take two days’ carer’s leave, she needs to give four days’ notice (twice the period she’s requested).

  • How do I calculate entitlement where my employee works variable hours?

    If your employee works variable hours, you should calculate their entitlement by working out how many hours on average they work each week. To do this:

    1. Add up the total number of hours they’ve worked in the previous 52 weeks
    2. Divide that total by 52 (or if they have less than 52 weeks’ service, divide by the number of weeks since they started their employment).

    For example, Omar started work 42 weeks ago, and during that time he has worked a total of 924 hours.

    Omar’s entitlement to carer’s leave would be calculated as follows:

    924 ÷ 42 = 22 hours

    If an employee wants to take carer’s leave in their first week, you should use the amount they’re expected to work in a week as the amount of leave they can take.

  • Can I refuse the request?

    Requests can’t be refused but they can be postponed if you reasonably believe that taking the leave at that time would cause serious disruption to the business. In these circumstances, you must:

    • Agree a new date when the same period of leave can be taken, having consulted with the employee. This must start on a date no later than one month after the first day of leave originally requested. For example, if leave is requested to start on 1 May 2024, the rearranged period of carer’s leave must start no later than 1 June 2024.
    • Confirm in writing to the employee the reason for the postponement of the leave and the new date when the leave may be taken. This written confirmation must be given to the employee within seven days of the original request and before the requested start date.
  • Where can I record this leave?
     

    Changes have been made to our Atlas platform to enable you to record carer’s leave as a sub-type of Family/Dependants leave from 6 April (as shown below).

    Adding carer’s leave in Atlas

What do I need to do next?

We’ve prepared all necessary changes to your handbook to set out details of this new right (where you use Citation documents).

Your handbook will be updated during the weekend of 6-7 April – you’ll get an email notification once it’s ready. You can then distribute the updated document to your employees through Atlas.

In the meantime, we’ve prepared a template letter you can use to notify your employees of this and other April changes. You can find this letter here.

We’ve also put together these handy resources to explain the new right and help you manage requests:

Paternity leave

The Paternity Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024 also completed their passage through parliament last week and are due to come into force today, 8 March 2024. The regulations will apply where the expected week of childbirth (EWC) begins after 6 April or placement for adoption begins on or after 6 April 2024.

The regulations are designed to add greater flexibility to the current paternity leave rules and make the following changes: 

  • Changes to how it’s taken

    Although the entitlement to paternity leave remains at two weeks, the employee will be able to divide this into one-week blocks taken at different times (right now, employees can only take one single period of leave of either one or two weeks – they’ll still be able to take it as a continuous block if they’d like). 

  • Changes to when it can be taken

    Employees will be able to take the leave within 52 weeks of birth or placement for adoption (right now, it must be taken within eight weeks). 

  • Changes to the notice required

    For birth cases, employees will still have to tell their employer of their entitlement and intention to take paternity leave by the 15th week before the EWC (or, if this isn’t reasonably practical, as soon as is reasonably practical), but they won’t have to give notice of the dates they intend to take leave until at least 28 days before that period of leave is due to start. In cases of adoption, the original notice of entitlement and intention to take paternity leave must be given no later than seven days after receiving notification of being matched for adoption and they must also confirm the paternity leave dates within the same timescale.

What do I need to do next?

We’ve prepared changes to your employee handbook to make sure it’s compliant with the new rules (this only applies to clients who use Citation documents).

These changes will be made during the weekend of 15-16 March and the updated documentation will be available in your Documents area of Atlas by 18 March (in the “contracts & handbooks” section). Once the updates have been made, you’ll receive an email to confirm – so look out for this.

However, in light of the imminent carer’s leave update to your documents (scheduled for the weekend of 6-7 April), you might choose to hold off distributing the updated handbook to your employees until this second phase of updates has taken place. You can then distribute the updated document to your employees through Atlas.

We’ve also updated these resources:

The government hasn’t revised their online form yet, but we expect it to be done soon. The current forms can be accessed here.

Just as a reminder, as is usually the case, the statutory paternity pay will also go up slightly in April 2024 to £184.03 – its current rate is £172.48.

Flexible working

The changes to flexible working are a little more complex because they’re being introduced by separate pieces of legislation.

The Flexible Working (Amendment) Regulations 2023 passed through Parliament in February 2024 and will come into force on 6 April 2024. The only purpose of these regulations is to remove the requirement to have 26 weeks’ service before making an application for flexible working.

From 6 April 2024, this will become a day-one right for all employees.

The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 became law last summer. It included the following changes:

Section 2(2) of the Act states that the Secretary of State would publish regulations setting out the date these changes would come into force but so far this hasn’t happened.

There were rumours that the government might be planning to bring the changes into force in July 2024 (which would explain the absence of regulations so far), but ACAS have now published a new statutory Code of Practice on requests for flexible working which incorporates all the above changes. The Code is currently going through Parliament and is expected to be coming into force on 6 April 2024.

Statutory Codes aren’t legally binding but are taken into account by employment tribunals when determining cases. So, despite the question mark over the legal status of these changes, we’d advise you treat them as being in force from 6 April, because not following them from that date would be a breach of the ACAS Code.

What do I need to do next?

We’ve prepared changes to your employee handbook to make sure it’s compliant with the new rules (this only applies to clients who use Citation documents).

These changes will be made during the weekend of 15-16 March and the updated documentation will be available in your Documents area of Atlas by 18 March (in the “Contracts & handbooks” section). Once the updates have been made, you’ll receive an email to confirm – so look out for this.

However, in light of the imminent carer’s leave update to your documents (scheduled for the weekend of 6-7 April), you might choose to to hold off distributing the updated handbook to your employees until this second phase of updates has taken place. You can then distribute the updated document to your employees through Atlas.

We’ve also updated these resources for you:

Increased redundancy protections

Currently employees on maternity leave, adoption leave and shared parental leave have special protection in situations where their role has been selected for redundancy. Specifically, they must be offered any suitable alternative roles available in priority over other internal or external candidates.  Under the Maternity Leave, Adoption Leave and Shared Parental Leave Regulations 2024, which will come into force on 6 April 2024, the current protections will be extended. Below, we set out how they’ll affect each group covered by the regulations.   

  • Pregnant employees and employees on maternity leave

    Pregnant employees will be protected from the moment the employer is informed of the pregnancy until 18 months after the birth of the child (right now, the protection only applies during the time the employee is on maternity leave).

    This protection will apply where the employer is notified of the pregnancy on or after the 6 April 2024. There are no rules regarding how the employee should notify the employer, but it doesn’t need to be in writing – so a verbal notification would be enough to trigger this protection.

    If the employee has notified the employer of their pregnancy before 6 April, the pregnancy protection won’t apply but the employee will be protected for 18 months from the birth of the child.

    If the employee is currently on maternity leave and their maternity leave is due to end on or after 6 April 2024, they’ll be entitled to the extended protection of 18 months after the birth of the child.

  • Employees on adoption leave

    For employees on adoption leave, the protection will be extended to 18 months from the date of placement (right now, the protection only applies during the time the employee is on adoption leave).

    If the employee is currently on adoption leave and their adoption leave is due to end on or after 6 April 2024, they will be entitled to the extended protection of 18 months after the birth of the child.

  • Employees taking shared parental leave

    For employees taking less than six weeks’ shared parental leave, they’re protected during their period of leave (which is the current position). However, from 6 April, employees who take at least six continuous weeks of shared parental leave will be protected for 18 months from the birth of the child. 

    If the employee’s shared parental leave ends on or after 6 April (and lasted for at least six continuous weeks) they’ll be entitled to the extended protection of 18 months from the birth of the child.

It’s important to remember that these rules don’t prevent an employee from being selected for redundancy. They only give them priority where their role is redundant and suitable alternative roles are available. If there are no suitable alternative roles available, this protection won’t apply.

While you don’t need to make any changes to your documents as a result of these changes, you do need to bear these protections in mind if you’re making redundancies and suitable alternative roles are available.  

Remember, our experts are always on hand to help you with this and any other issue if you’re thinking about making redundancies in your business. Simply call 0345 844 4848 to speak to one of our advisors on your 24/7 HR advice line.

New rules on holiday entitlement and rolled-up holiday pay  

Don’t forget, the new rules on holiday entitlement and rolled-up holiday pay for part-year and irregular hours workers come into force for employers whose holiday year starts from 1 April 2024. You can read all about these changes in our January legal update here. 

The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023  

This Act passed last year and will come into force on 1 July 2024. The government have recently finished consulting on a draft statutory Code of Practice which will set out how employers should comply with their obligations under the new rules.

We’ll be sending out a further update when they publish full details of how this law will apply in practice but, in the meantime, these are the key changes to be aware of: 

Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023  

Despite a rocky journey through Parliament, this Act passed the House of Commons on 20 October 2023 and will come into force in October 2024.   

The Act introduces a new duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. Reasonable steps would include having the right policies in place, training workers and managers on those policies, and ensuring incidents which arise in the workplace are handled appropriately. 

Employers found to be in breach face a potential 25% uplift in damages.  

Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023   

This Act gives a statutory right to workers to request a more predictable working pattern where their existing working pattern lacks certainty in terms of the hours or times they work (this will include workers on a fixed term of less than 12 months). 

The right to request will operate in a similar way to flexible working in that employers will be able to refuse requests on a number of grounds.  

This Act is coming into force in October 2024, but we’re still waiting for draft regulations to be published to shed more light on how this new right will operate in practice and its implications for employers. We’ll update you as soon as these are published. 

Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023  

This Act introduces a day-one right to take up to 12 weeks’ leave for employees where a neonate (a child who is 28 days old or younger) is admitted to hospital for care for a continuous period of seven days or more.   

A separate right to statutory neonatal pay will apply where the employee meets service and minimum earnings criteria (expected to be 26 weeks and the Lower Earnings Limit which is currently £123 per week).  

This Act was passed on 25 May 2023 and the government will now create regulations which will include the date the new rules will come into force. It is expected that this may be April 2025.  

Other changes in the pipeline:  

Changes to post-termination restrictions  

The government has announced that, following the consultation it launched into non-compete clauses back in December 2020, they’ll be bringing in legislation to limit non-compete post-termination restrictions to a maximum length of three months.   

The changes will only apply to non-compete restrictions and won’t affect other restrictions such as:   

• restrictions imposed during notice periods (including things like garden leave)   

• arrangements on confidentiality clauses   

• non-solicitation and non-dealing clauses 

The government will be introducing this legislation “when parliamentary time allows” and we’ll update you as soon as this happens. 

Statutory Code on Fire and Rehire 

The  government has introduced a Code of Practice on Fire and Rehire – which is where employers can try to force through changes to contracts by dismissing employees and offering re-engagement on new terms.  

The Code clarifies how employers should behave when seeking to change employees’ terms and conditions and requires them to have meaningful discussions with employees and to explore alternatives to dismissal and re-engagement. 

Employment tribunals will have the power to apply an uplift of up to 25% to an employee’s compensation if an employer unreasonably fails to comply with the code. 

The Code of Practice is currently passing through Parliament and, if approved, is likely to be brought into effect later in the summer. 

Now breathe… and remember, we’ve got your back 

That was a lot to take in, wasn’t it? This is an unprecedented year of employment law change, and that’s why it’s our top priority to keep you informed as soon as possible on exactly what’s changing, when, and what you may need to do. It’s also why our teams are working round the clock to make sure any documentation you receive from us is compliant with all new legislation.

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