Time for the annual review of financial limits. The two biggies:
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The cap on a week’s pay when calculating redundancy payments (or the basic award for unfair dismissal) goes up to £330;
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The maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal is raised to £63,000.
I’m really not sure if the latter should be retained, especially as the corresponding award in discrimination cases is unlimited. If Alf is sacked after thirty years’ graft for sneezing on the MD’s sandwiches, why is he more restricted in his recovery than when Abdul is sacked for his religion?
The other changes are:
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Unfair dismissal minimum awards for certain health & safety, sunday working, Working Time Regs, pension trustee, or certain trade union reasons rises to £4,400;
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… and wrongful expulsion from a trade union bags you a minimum award of £6,900.
All of this applies to dismissals on and after 1st February 2008. The full list of changes can be found here.
Consultation, consultation, consultation. The worst crimes imaginable can nip under the radar if you only sit your employees down and talk about how terribly dreadful the situation is, but needs must, and what can we do to make the blow easier? Compulsory collective consultation in redundancy situations involving 20 or more job losses has been around for over thirty years, but we still see new developments.
If you, a company, are contemplating making 20+ redundancies at one establishment within ninety days, you have to spend at least 30 days in consultation prior to the first dismissal. If it’s 100+ redundancies, it’s 90 days. Fail to do this, and your employees can apply to the tribunal for a “protective award”. I personally have never understood the term - it’s a fine for non-compliance, nothing less. A protective award = 90 days’ pay. So, let’s say you’re making 25-odd employees redundant, which indicates in itself you haven’t bags of cash lying around, if you don’t give ‘em 30 days’ worth of consultation (no matter how little effect it might have on the final result) then you cop for 90 days’ pay to each of them. What’s that? 90 days? But we were only supposed to consult for 30! Tough shit. It’s a fine. You should have done it properly. This idea, following Susie Radin in 2004 which finally clarified the award as punitive, has been backed up by the EAT. This particular case has been notified all over the employment news-o-sphere, but I suspect it’s simply the first cock-up to be appealed rather than any shift in practice for most tribunals.