Reforming Employment Law - Further Government Proposals

The latest in the government's push towards reformation of the employment process are the proposed new amendments to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, including:

proposals to repeal the provisions in the Equality Act 2010 relating to third party harassment and the discrimination questionnaire procedure; proposal to give employment tribunals the power to order an employer to carry out a pay audit where it has lost an equal pay claim or gender discrimination claim relating to non-contractual pay, and proposal to extend the circumstances in which tribunals can make deposit orders and orders for the recovery of witness expenses for litigants in person. The government's proposal to repeal provisions which in certain circumstances renders employers liable for harassment of their employees by third parties may not mean employers are completely off the hook. Employees might still be able to argue that an employer's inaction in the face of third-party harassment amounts to unwanted conduct "related to" a protected characteristic that violated their dignity or created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.

The government also proposes that from 2015 the UK will have a new system of flexible...