If a new trial scheme is found to be successful, employment tribunals may also hold evening sittings.
Beginning in early November, the Tribunals Service will pilot evening sittings at two tribunals in East London and Cardiff. The pilot will run for six months, and will see cases from around 6pm to 8pm.
The new initiative is being [...]

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A recently published study claims that job applicants with African or Asian names are being discriminated against by employers.
In the study - which was commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions - researchers sent thousands of fake CVs to companies across the country.
Three different identities were created for the CVs. All three had similar [...]

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Following a successful challenge by five police authorities, employers conducting Criminal Record Bureau checks on prospective employees will have access to more information about any older convictions they may have.
Formerly, the Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal had stated that the police should not retain information on spent criminal convictions, as doing so would put [...]

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The recent Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) case of Beijing Ton Ren Tang Ltd v Wang has highlighted the importance of taking all of an individual’s circumstances into account when deciding if they have acted reasonably in attempting to mitigate their loss after being dismissed.
Ms Wang was recruited from her native China to work in a [...]

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Mrs Steele had been employed by Sodexho Defence Services as a manager of a convenience store. When cashing up, the money was counted and bagged up in an office monitored by CCTV. On four dates between April and July, money amounting to over £10,000 had gone missing. On all four occasions, Mrs Steele had been [...]

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The Government has released a draft of the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, which are intended to implement the EC Agency Workers Directive in the UK, along with draft consequential amendments to the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations 2003, SI 2003/3319.
These draft regulations are included as annexes to a consultation document. The consultation [...]

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EEF, the manufacturer’s organisation, has called for the introduction of a formula to determine future increases to the National Minimum Wage (NMW), to give employers “some form of certainty about its potential impact”.
It is not the first time the EEF has called for such a formula. In previous years they have made the same request, [...]

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The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) has published the findings of a survey into the effects of the European Working Time Directive on patient safety.
The results of the survey - which involved more than 360 consultants and over 500 trainees - showed that 64% of those polled believed that quality of care had worsened since [...]

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The Government’s new Vetting and Barring Scheme came into force on Monday 12th October 2009. The scheme introduces new criminal offences for individuals and organisations who fail to comply with the new legislation.
The changes come as a result of Sir Michael Bichard’s report into the Soham murders, and will affect people who work with children [...]

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A recent decision in the Court of Appeal emphasised that to come within the definition of a “commercial agent” within the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations the agent has to act on behalf of the principal and not on his own behalf.
The case of Sagal (Trading as Bunz UK) and Atelier Bunz GmbH involved the [...]

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