Legally Panto'd

With the panto season in full swing (and no, we’re not talking about the Krankies), we thought it apt that we tinge our regular take on legal matters with a Twankyish rouge. So without further ado or (we hope) heckling from the cheap seats, we proudly present our heroes and villains of 2011.

First let’s hear it for The Bribery Act. Like botox on the Ugly Sisters, it’s long overdue and makes bribery easier to detect. It’s also now a strict liability offence, so if detected in any part of an organisation, someone up top’s for the chop.

Next, we say a big ‘yah boo sucks’ to the proposed introduction of ‘protected conversations’.

These are meant to be open and frank discussions between employers and staff regarding issues like retirement plans and disciplinary or grievance matters. Call us sceptical, (we’ve heard worse), but we think this could lead to bullying in private, as with the exception of discrimination claims, no parts of these conversations can be used in future employment litigation.

However when it comes to the new rules on unfair dismissal, we go both ways.

They’re nice for employers (hurrah!) as they increase the qualifying period for an unfair dismissal claim from one to two years. But they’re nasty for employers (groan!) as they’re likely to increase the number of discrimination claims. These don’t have a qualifying period and can really play havoc with your company jewel box.

No qualms though about the Agency Worker Regulations. Now agency workers get the same rights as employees but shouldn’t receive any positive discrimination. What’s more, if any Scrooge-like employers fail to provide these rights or don’t supply agencies with correct information, things could get very messy in an employment tribunal.

And because we love a happy ending, we’ll close with a big cheer for the New Public Sector Equality Duty. Public sector employers must now consider equality across all nine protected characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage + civil partnership, and pregnancy + maternity) when previously the duty only extended to race, disability and sex. In our view, this continues the extremely positive shift towards proactive prevention of discrimination and harassment rather than litigation after the event.

Overall then, more cheers than boos, but that’s how it should be. In the current state of the kingdom, employers have enough problems clambering up the commercial beanstalk. They certainly don’t need the government clinging on to their ankles.

Oh no they don’t.

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