Employment weekly highlights—31 October 2024
This week’s edition of Employment weekly highlights includes: (1) key employment announcements in the Autumn Budget 2024, (2) an article discussing the ESG ‘washing’ phenomenon, (3) confirmation of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW) rates from 1 April 2025, (4) the Office for National Statistics (ONS) 2024 annual survey of working hours and earnings, (5) analysis by Rowena Wisniewska Sethi, barrister and Isabella Taylor, pupil at 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square of a First Tier Tribunal decision varying a ‘disproportionate’ escalating penalty issued by the Pensions Regulator, (6) a reminder that the duty to prevent workplace sexual harassment has come into force, (7) an EAT decision on the Armed Forces provisions of the Equality Act 2010, (8) UK gender pay gap data for 2024 from the ONS, (9) the increasing involvement of white collar crime lawyers in investigations of allegations of non-financial misconduct, (10) analysis by Victoria Hordern, partner at Taylor Wessing LLP, Kuan Hon, Of Counsel at Dentons, and Dan Whitehead, Counsel at Hogan Lovells of the Data (Use and Access) Bill, (11) Regulations making provision for the TUPE transfer of staff from the Phone-paid Services Authority Ltd (PSA) to the Office of Communications (OFCOM) on 1 February 2025, (12) a Court of Appeal decision rejecting the EAT’s suggestion that ‘general workforce consultation’ is required in small-scale redundancies in order for a dismissal to be fair, (13) updates to various Worker and Temporary Worker sponsor guidance documents confirming that the Home Office has commenced the roll-out of its new ‘Sponsor UK’ IT system, (14) a House of Lords report on modern slavery, (15) an Irish Order specifying the national minimum hourly rate of pay and board and lodging rates in Ireland from 1 January 2025, (16) dates for your diary, (17) updates to our case and legislation trackers and horizon scanner, and (18) new Q&As.