Statutory Pay and National Minimum Wage increases

You should be aware of the following adjustments:
- Statutory Maternity Pay/Paternity Pay/Adoption Pay/Shared Parental Pay increases from £140.98 to £145.18 per week.
- Statutory Sick Pay increases from £89.35 to £92.05 per week.
- Maximum amount of a weeks' pay for the purpose of calculating the basic award for redundancy payment increases from £489 to £508 per week.
- Maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal increases to £83,682.
- National Living Wage increase for workers aged 25 and over, from £7.50 to £7.83.
- National Minimum Wage increase for workers aged 21 but under 25 from £7.05 to £7.38.
- National Minimum Wage increase for workers aged 18 but under 21 from £5.60 to £5.90.
- National Minimum Wage increase for workers aged 16 or 17 from £4.05 to £4.20 and the apprentice rate increases from £3.50 to £3.70.

Changes to tax treatment of termination payments
With effect from 6 April 2018 there are changes to the tax treatment of termination payments. Any payments made in lieu of an employee's notice will be subject to tax and Class 1 National Insurance contribution, whether they are on contract or not. Previously, in the absence of a PILON (pay in lieu of notice) clause in the employment contract an employee departing under a Settlement Agreement (or their solicitor) may ask for notice to be paid tax free. This was permitted, however now all notice payments (in lieu or otherwise) must go through PAYE and be taxed and NI'd.
In addition, from the same date the rules on payments over the £30,000 sum are changing. Employers will be liable to pay Class 1A National Insurance contributions on any terminations above £30,000 that are subject to income tax by the employee.

Solicitors may try it on or may not be aware of the changes, but HMRC will be aware and they are routinely auditing Settlement Agreements, sometimes years after the event.
Contributions to auto-enrolment scheme increases
With effect from 6 April 2018 employer contributions into a pensions auto-enrolment scheme increase from 1% to 2%, with a further planned increase to 3% to take effect in April 2019.

Employment Tribunals
Employment Tribunals are up by 90% since the Supreme Court ruling on employment tribunal fees. The ruling in July 2017 found that the introduction of fees by the Government was unlawful and discriminatory against women who were more statistically likely to have short term employment.
The latest Government figures, covering October-December 2017, show 8,173 single claims were brought, compared to 4,200 for the same period in 2016, an increase of more than 90%.
We will need to see another set of quarterly figures to establish if this trend continues and is to be the new ‘normal', but for now it appears that claims are going in an upwards direction and more care will be required for employers to avoid litigation.
Also, following the Supreme Court decision, a fee refund scheme was launched in autumn 2017 to reimburse anyone who had paid a fee. As at 31 December 2017, the Ministry of Justice had made 3,337 refund fee payments, with a total value of almost £2.8m.

GDPR
BOSS has guidance and standard documents available to help members prepare their HR Departments for the introduction of GDPR on 25 May, 2018.
Case Law
Lofty vs Hamis - The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has ruled that ‘cancer' for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 includes pre-cancerous lesions, as it upheld the unfair dismissal appeal of a woman who suffered from a lesion that could have become malignant.