HR News

Two useful new guides have been published by the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) on pregnancy for babies due on or after 3 April 2011. As such the guides cover the right to additional paternity leave and pay. One guide is for employers and one is for employees.

The Home Office has begun a ‘radical examination’ of the Vetting and Barring Scheme, the system of checks that people working with children and vulnerable adults are required to undergo.

In its response to the government’s consultation on abolishing the default retirement age, the Employers Forum on Age (EFA) has called for an exemption to protect insured benefits.

The government has confirmed that the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (AWR) will come into force in October 2011 in their original state and will not be amended beforehand. There has been speculation that the government wanted to tinker with the AWR (confirmed by today’s written ministerial statement) to lessen their regulatory burden on business.

A widespread extension of industrial action across the private sector in response to the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review is unlikely to materialise, according to Nick Squire from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s employment, pensions and benefits team.