The government has published its response to the 2017 Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices, which it has called its “Good Work” report. The response is accompanied by four consultation documents covering protecting agency workers, increasing transparency
in the labour market, employment status and enforcement of employment rights. As the government has accepted the vast majority of the Taylor Review’s recommendations for employment law reform, much of the content of the consultations concerns the detail of
how to implement those recommendations, rather than whether to do so. The consultation periods run until various dates between 9 May and 1 June 2018. Outside the consultations, there are to be only a few imminent employment law changes. The government has
confirmed that it is to:

• legislate shortly to extend the right to payslips to all workers and to require that employers state the hours being paid for on the payslips of time-paid workers
• increase, as soon as practicable, the penalty limit for aggravated breaches of employment law from £5,000 to at least £20,000.

From a non-legislative perspective, it is to:

• implement targeted enforcement by HMRC to ensure interns are being paid the national minimum wage (NMW) if they qualify as workers
• launch a task force to promote awareness and take-up of the right to request flexible working and a campaign to encourage more working parents to take shared parental leave
• do more to ensure expectant and new mothers know their employment rights
• ask the Low Pay Commission to consider the impact of having higher NMW rates for zero-hours workers.

As for the four consultation documents:

1. Protecting agency workers: the two key proposals here are amending the legislation to improve the information which must be provided by employment businesses to work seekers, involving the contract between them containing a “key facts” page to be provided
   to the work seeker at the time they register, and considering the repeal of the so-called “Swedish derogation”, which allows work seekers to opt out of equal pay entitlements.
2. Increasing transparency in the labour market: there are a number of matters under consultation here, including extending the right to a written statement of employment particulars to workers as well as employees and making it a day one right, increasing
   the holiday pay reference period from 12 to 52 weeks, extending the one week break in service for the calculation of the continuous service qualifying period and introducing a new right for all employees and workers to request a contract change to provide
   more predictable working conditions.
3. Employment status: this is the most significant of the four consultation documents. The government accepts there is a lack of clarity and certainty over employment status. The consultation therefore asks for views on the possibility of codifying into legislation
   the main case law principles that govern employment status and it raises the question of whether the tests of mutuality of obligation, personal service and control are still relevant in the modern workplace. The consultation also raises the option of replacing
   the current tests and case law with an alternative, simpler test for employment status. The government has confirmed that it intends to retain the current three-tier system of employment status, i.e. employees, workers and the self-employed, but wants to explore
   how these statuses should be defined and where the lines between them are drawn. It is also to look at the tests that define the boundary between those currently taxed as employees and those taxed on a self-employed basis. Finally, this consultation is to
   consider how “working time” should be defined for the purposes of the NMW, specifically for those who work via an online platform.
4. Enforcement of employment rights: the key issues under discussion in this consultation document are how the enforcement process for employment tribunal awards could be made simpler for workers, establishing a new naming scheme for employers who fail to
   pay tribunal awards, considering what action could be taken against employers who repeatedly ignore either their employment law responsibilities or tribunal decisions and how the state could take responsibility for enforcing basic employment rights, i.e. the
   NMW, holiday pay and sick pay, for the lowest paid workers.

Source: New feed