Jump to: Employment Legislation Good Work Plan | Agency & irregular hours | Statutory increases | Bereavement | Immigration | Confidentiality & NDAs
Latest Employment Legislation effective from 06 April 2025
There is one key piece of legislation that our parishes as employers need to be aware of:
- The Neonatal Care Leave and Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 2025 come into force for births or adoptions on or after 6 April 2025.
- The Regulations provide for a day one right for employees to take neonatal care leave where a child has received neonatal care for an uninterrupted period of seven days excluding the day that the neonatal care starts.
- The right applies to each parent separately, and up to 12 weeks leave may be taken within 68 weeks of the birth.
- The Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (General) Regulations 2025 also come into force on 06 April 2025. Where the employee has 26 weeks of continuous service and earnings of an average of at least £125 a week (the Lower Earnings Limit), they will be entitled to statutory neonatal care leave pay of £187.18 a week.
- Employers need to prepare a neonatal policy, consider how this should be publicised and ensure that employees understand this process for taking leave.
For more details on neonatal care leave and pay, visit the GOV.UK or ACAS websites.
- From 6 April 2025, the government is implementing four significant changes to employer national insurance contributions (NICs).
- Two of these represent substantial tax increases.
- The rate of employers' NICs increases from 13.8 % to 15%.
- Because of the lowering of the earnings threshold, employers will pay NICs on employee earnings from £5,000 per year rather than £9,100.
- Additionally, the rates for Class 1A and Class 1B employer contributions, which apply to taxable benefits-in-kind, will increase accordingly.
- To partially offset these increases, the government is enhancing the employment allowance in two ways:
- It will become available to all employers, removing the current restriction limiting it to employers with an annual employer NICs liability of less than £100,000.
- The maximum amount employers can save through the Employment Allowance will increase from £5,000 to £10,500.
Further information about changes to the Employer National Insurance Contribution increases can be found on the GOV.UK website.
- The basic state pension (that is, for those who reached state pension age before 06 April 2016) and new state pension will be uplifted by 4.1%.
- The full basic state pension increases from £169.50 a week to £176.45. The full new state pension increases from £221.20 per week to £230.25
- The Government published its comprehensive Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules on 12 March 2025, and the changes come into effect on various dates in April 2025.
- The developments include changes to the Skilled Worker Route and Global Talent Route as well as changes to Skilled Workers' salaries.
Further information about this can be read in the Blake Morgan article Changes to Immigration Rules, or information on UK Visas and Immigration can be found on the GOV.UK website.
Employment Legislation that came into effect on 6 April 2024
There are four key pieces of legislation that our parishes as employers need to be aware of:
- Employees will be entitled to request flexible working arrangements from the first day of their employment rather than after 26 weeks as is currently. This includes requests for part-time, term-term, flextime, compressed hours, and varied working locations.
- Employees will no longer be required to set out the effect their requested arrangement will have on the organisation, nor suggest ways their employer can manage it.
- Employers will have to consult with the employee on alternatives before refusing their request for flexible working arrangements and explain the reasons behind their decision. Previously, employers could deny any request for flexible working without explanation.
- Employers are now obliged to deal with a request, including an appeal within two months, compared to three months previously.
- Employees can make two statutory requests for flexible working in any twelve-month period, as opposed to one request previously.
Further information about flexible working can be found on the GOV.UK website.
The Carer's Leave Regulations 2024 introduce a new statutory right to unpaid carer's leave for employees with caring responsibilities in England, Wales and Scotland.
This leave is a day-one right, available to all employees without any qualifying period. It applies to anyone caring for a spouse, civil partner, child, parent or other dependant who needs care because of a disability, old age or any illness or injury likely to require at least three months' care. This leave is unpaid. The maximum duration of leave is one week per year. While employers can;t deny an employee's request for carer's leave, they can postpone if you reasonably consider that the operation of the organisation would be unduly disrupted if it were approved.
Further information about unpaid carer's leave can be found on the GOV.UK website.
Under the current law, employees on maternity leave, shared parental leave or adoption leave already have special protection in a redundancy situation. From 6 April 2024, the Maternity Leave, Adoption Leave and Shared Parental Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024 extend redundancy protection to apply during pregnancy and for a period of 18 months after birth or placement of a child for those taking maternity, adoption or shared parental leave.
This amended regulation makes significant changes to paternity leave, allowing it to be taken in the first 52 weeks after birth or adoption, and either as two separate weeks, one single week or two consecutive weeks together. This will apply to children whose expected week of childbirth is after 6 April 2024, and children whose expected date of placement for adoption, or expected date of entry into Great Britain for adoption, is on or after that date.
The Good Work Plan
The Government has dubbed the Good Work Plan “the biggest overhaul in employment law in 20 years”, although it may not feel like that at the moment. However, don’t let these new changes catch you out…
From 6th April 2020, all employees and workers should receive a written statement on or before their first day of employment. Workers don’t always have a written contract with their employer and they don’t have to accept the work their employer offers; they have fewer rights than employees.
Employees, on the other hand, always have a written contract of employment and have to accept the work their employer gives them. As an employee, they get flexible working rights, protection from dismissal, and the right to raise grievances.
After 26 weeks of employment, workers and employees can request a clearer, more certain contract. For example, they can ask you for a guaranteed number of working hours or fixed working days. You’ll have to approve or reject their request within three months. If you reject it, you’ll need to have a genuine business reason to back up your decision.
From 6th April 2020, the continuous service gap increased to four weeks.
New agency workers must be provided with a 'Key Facts Page' to tell them more about a job before they accept a role. The Key Facts Page can’t be longer than two A4 pages and must explain:
- The type of contract;
- The minimum rate of pay;
- The person who pays the wage;
- That workers get the same pay as permanent staff after 12 weeks’ service.
More protection for agency workers
From April 2020, the Agency Workers Regulations were amended so that agency workers with 12 weeks’ continuous service are paid the same amount as permanent staff.
Holiday Pay for those with irregular hours
The Working Time Regulations 1998 have also been amended to increase the reference period for determining an average week’s pay (to calculate holiday pay). Where a worker has been employed by their employer for at least 52 complete weeks, the reference period is increased from 12 weeks to 52 weeks.
Where a worker has been employed by their employer for less than 52 weeks, the reference period is the number of weeks for which the worker has been employed. This development makes it fairer and much easier to calculate holiday pay and protects workers who work irregular hours.
Further changes to holiday rules came into effect from 01 April 2024. For holiday years beginning on or after this date, holiday entitlement for part-year and irregular-hours workers can be calculated by taking 12.07% of the hours worked in the pay period.
Rolled-up holiday will also be permissible from this date for part-year and irregular-hours workers only.
Further information on holiday pay and entitlements can be found on the gov.uk website.
Increase to statutory rates
The period that an employer must retain records sufficient to prove it is paying a worker the correct rate is six years (this became effective from 1 April 2021).
From 1 April 2025, the National Living Wage ( NLW) and National Minimum Wage (NMW), rates will rise as follows:
- NLW will increase from £11.44 to £12.21 per hour (for people aged 21 or older);
- NMW for workers aged 18-20 will increase from £8.60 to £10.00 per hour;
- The apprentice minimum wage will increase from £6.40 to £7.55 per hour.
The real Living Wage is higher than the government's minimum, or National Living Wage, and is an independently calculated hourly rate of pay that is based on the actual cost of living. From 24 October 2024, the current rates are:
- £12.60 in the UK
- £13.85 in London
- Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) increased from £116.75 to £118.75 per week;
- The Lower earnings limit remains at £123 or more per week
- Statutory maternity pay prescribed rate, statutory paternity pay, statutory adoption pay, statutory shared parental pay, and statutory parental bereavement pay increase from £184.03 to £187.18 per week.
Key tribunal compensation limits
The Government has announced several changes to employment tribunal compensation and limits. The most important of these are detailed below:
| Payments | From 6 April 2024 | From 6 April 2025 |
| The maximum amount of a "week's pay" for the purpose of calculating a redundancy payment or for various awards, including the basis or additional award of compensation for unfair dismissal | £700 | £719 |
| The minimum basic award for certain unfair dismissals (including health & safety dismissals) | £8,533 | £8,763 |
| The maximum basic award for unfair dismissal and statutory redundancy payment (30 weeks' pay), subject to the limit on a week's pay. | £21,000 | £21,570 |
| The maximum amount of a compensatory award for ordinary unfair dismissal is capped at the lower of one year's gross pay or £118,223. | £115,115 | £118,223 |
* A few exceptions exist where the cap does not apply, including dismissals for whistleblowing or raising certain health and safety concerns. Additionally, there is no limit on awards for dismissals related to unlawful discrimination.
Guidelines for injury to feelings awards
An award for injury to feelings is made to compensate for injury to feelings caused by discrimination. The award is separate from an award to compensate for financial loss and can be made even where no financial loss has been suffered. To assist Employment Tribunals, the Court of Appeal previously set out guidance for quantifying awards for injury to feelings, known as the Vento bands.
On or after 6 April 2025, the Vento bands increased as follows:
- Lower band (less serious cases): £1,200 - £12,100
- Middle band (cases that do not merit an award in the upper band): £12,100 - £36,400
- Upper band (the most serious cases): £36,400 - £60,700
Gender pay gap reporting
All employers with 250 or more employees are required by law to comply with gender pay gap reporting under the specific duties of the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. Employers must report their gender pay gap data on the snapshot date each year which is 31 March for most public authority employers and 5 April for private, voluntary and all other public authority employers. Further guidance on gender pay gap reporting can be found on the gov.uk website.
The gender pay gap is the difference between the average (mean or median) earnings of men and women across the workforce.
IR35
The off-payroll / IR35 rules to prevent the exploitation of personal service companies for tax avoidance have been in force for all public sector businesses and medium or large-sized private sector businesses since 6 April 2021, all such organisations are responsible for deciding the employment status of their workers. This includes some charities and third sector organisations. The rules shift responsibility for determining the status of a contractor for tax purposes onto the client. Guidance on understanding off-payroll working (IR35) can be found here.
Post-employment notice pay
Changes to the calculation of Post-Employment Notice Pay (PENP) took effect on 6 April 2021 which resulted in a more consistent calculation.
PENP is the amount of a 'relevant termination award' paid to a departing employee that represents a payment in lieu of all or part of their notice entitlement. It is calculated using the statutory formula, based on the employee's basic pay and the number of days (or months) in the individual's period of unserved notice (the post-employment notice period).
This amount is subject to deductions for income tax and National Insurance contributions, therefore, PENP can no longer be paid free of tax.
New immigration system
The government has published its plans for the new points-based immigration system which will apply from 1st January 2021 to both EU and non-EU migrant workers.
Under the new system, all would-be Tier Two (General) migrants must speak English and will need an offer from an approved sponsor, for a role at the required skill level (i.e. a role requiring qualifications equivalent to A levels) and at the required salary.
The minimum salary threshold will be set at £25,600 (with no regional variation across the UK). However, in certain circumstances, the minimum salary threshold will be reduced to £20,480. There will be no need to advertise a role and no cap on Tier Two work visas.
Confidentiality and NDAs
Acas has published new guidance on non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). These commonly form part of settlement agreements with departing employees. This is the latest in a series of developments and, although the guidance does not have the same force as a statutory code of practice, it may be used as evidence in legal proceedings.
The Acas guidance discourages the routine use of NDAs. It also states that a worker should be given a reasonable time to consider the agreement carefully and makes it clear that NDAs should not be used to stop someone from:
- Reporting discrimination or sexual harassment at work or to the police.
- Disclosing a future act of discrimination or harassment.
- Whistleblowing
Details of the government’s proposed legislation on confidentiality clauses are awaited.