2012 will be nothing if not busy with a raft of employment changes ahead. Many are being introduced by the Government in an attempt to assist businesses through regulatory red-tape, and are designed to reduce costs to such businesses in what continues to be a challenging economic climate.

Here is a summary of the key expected and potential changes for your diaries:

February

1 February 2012 – Employment Tribunal Awards have increased: the limit on a week’s pay has increased from £400 to £430 and the maximum unfair dismissal compensatory award has increased from £68,400 to £72,300 for all dismissals taking effect on or after 1 February.

March

6 March 2012 – the consultation period currently running on the proposed introduction of issue and hearing fees at Employment Tribunals and the EAT ends.

April

6 April 2012 –the qualifying period for bringing a claim for Unfair Dismissal will increase from one to two years.  The draft legislation has now been published and, as expected, any employee currently in employment on or before 5 April 2012 will still accrue the rights to bring a claim after one year of service, whereas colleagues starting on or after 6 April 2012 will require two years' service to bring a claim.

6 April 2012 – Statutory Maternity Pay, Statutory Adoption Pay and Statutory Paternity Pay increases from £128.73 to £135.45 per week.

6 April 2012 – Statutory Sick Pay increases from £81.60 to £85.85 per week.

Other Tribunal changes – it is expected that a variety of the proposed Tribunal reforms will come into force in April 2012. These include:

• increasing the maximum costs award a Tribunal can make from £10,000 to £20,000; 
• increasing the amount a Tribunal can order a party to pay on deposit to continue their claim/defence from £500 to £1,000; and
• Employment Judges to sit alone (without wing members) to hear unfair dismissal claims.

October

1 October 2012 – new laws come into force which will require all employers in Great Britain to automatically enrol eligible employees into a pension scheme (“Auto-enrolment”).  Auto-enrolment will be phased in over a five year period starting on 1 October, and larger employers will be required to comply before smaller employers.  Click here to see the DWP’s recent news release confirming the new timetable.

National Minimum Wage rates also increase each October, but no rates for this year have yet been announced.

Possible changes:

The Government has also announced changes which stem from the “Consultation on Modern Workplaces”, which ended in August 2011. It is likely that we may see some of the following changes in 2012, although no actual dates have been announced:

• Amending the Working Time Regulations 1998 to cover, amongst other things, the right for an employee who has not be able to take holiday due to sickness absence to carry holiday leave forward into another leave year;
• The power for Employment Tribunals to order employers to conduct and publish a pay audit if the employer is found to have committed a discriminatory act in relation to pay.

Following the “Resolving Workplace Disputes” consultation, the Government also set out its plans to make the following changes (exact implementation dates yet to be confirmed):

• Early ACAS conciliation – it is proposed that a Claimant would be required to submit their claim to ACAS in the first instance before it would be accepted at the Employment Tribunal in order for the Claimant to be offered pre-claim conciliation (“PCC”). PCC would stop the clock running on the applicable limitation period within which to bring the Tribunal application to the Tribunal itself;
• Financial penalties for employers who lose at Tribunal are also proposed, with a minimum “fine” of £100 and a maximum of £5,000.