October 2018: Childcare Voucher Scheme From 4th October 2018, childcare voucher salary-sacrifice schemes will close to all new applicants. Existing users will still be able to receive vouchers providing: You stay with the same employer and they continue to run the scheme You do not take an unpaid career break of longer than a year The new tax-free childcare scheme … Read More

Many employers that fund training insist on reimbursement if the employee leaves within a certain period. With the right agreement this is perfectly legal, but what must you not do if the employee then goes on maternity leave? Protecting your assets Whilst external training and qualifications can benefit your business, a down side is that the employee leaves soon after … Read More

Working in hot temperatures Although the Great British Summer often doesn’t result in hot temperatures (apart from this year), there will be times when the sun does come out and workers find themselves working in hot conditions. In the UK, there is no maximum temperature that a workplace is allowed to be, rather advice from the Health & Safety Executive … Read More

With the current weather conditions, the risk of flooding may not be the highest priority. However, it is important that businesses prepare for likely emergencies and some parts of the country can be at high risk of flooding. Despite the availability of free flood risk warning services, they are not always as widely used as they could be. The Environment … Read More

Figures recently released by the Environment Agency show that the most popular types of land used by waste criminals for dumping illegal waste were farms (34% of dumps), industrial units (24%), abandoned factories (10%) and derelict sites (7%). They state that between December 2016 and November 2017 they investigated 18,244 bales of dumped waste, at approximately 1 ton each and … Read More

GRI is an American based international standards organisation which helps businesses, governments and other organisations understand and report on a wide range of sustainability issues. With support from the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) a new standard was recently launched providing guidance on measuring and reporting on occupational health and safety impacts on the economy, the environment and … Read More

The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Occupational Safety and Health recently published a report looking at the enforcement of health and safety by Local Authorities. APPGs are informal cross-party groups run by and for Members of the Commons and Lords to provide a forum for the discussion and promotion of specific issues. While these groups have no official status … Read More

It seems that a large number of employers still have discriminatory attitudes towards employing pregnant employees and new mothers. A survey by the Equality and Human Rights commission of more than 1,100 private sector employers, have found that over a third thought it reasonable to ask female candidates during the recruitment process about their future plans to have children and … Read More

Employees with less than two years’ service cannot generally claim unfair dismissal, so it is relatively straightforward to dismiss. What consideration do you need to have in mind for dismissing a short- serving employee and how should you go about it. Under the Employment Rights Act 1996, you don’t need to prove one of the five potential fair reasons for … Read More

Non-Destructive Testing is used to check for defects in plant, e.g. pressure equipment, that may have been introduced by the manufacturing process or deterioration caused by the operation of the plant. The HSE has issued a safety alert following the discovery of a fraud involving the issue of Personnel Certification in Non-Destructive Testing (PCN) to people carrying out this work. … Read More