BEIS consult on measures to increase transparency in the UK labour market
08 February 2018
The consultation on measures to increase transparency in the UK labour market will run until the 23 May 2018.
Review recommended: A payslip for all workers
‘The government should build on and improve clarity, certainty and understanding of all working people by extending the right to a written statement to ‘dependent contractors’ as well as employees.’
This has been accepted by government and how best to implement this change will be explored through this consultation. This consultation is an opportunity for the government to test its proposals on how to take this recommendation forward and gather evidence to inform its decisions.
Review recommended: Continuous service extension and clarity
‘The government should extend, from one week to one month, the consideration of the relevant break in service for the calculation of the qualifying period for continuous service and clarify the situations where cessations of work could be justified.’
Government recognise the rationale behind this recommendation in a labour market where more people work atypically and agree that the break in service period for continuous service should be extended beyond one week. Further evidence and a range of views from stakeholders are sought through this consultation before deciding on the extent to which we extend the break in service period.
Review recommended: Holiday Pay
‘The government should do more to promote awareness of holiday pay entitlements, increasing the pay reference period to 52 weeks to take account of seasonal variations and give dependent contractors the opportunity to receive rolled-up holiday pay.’
There are three elements to this recommendation each looked at discussing individually:
-
Increasing awareness of holiday pay entitlements
-
Changing the reference period – by extending from 12 to 52 weeks so to better reflect the seasonal nature of casual and zero hours work
-
Ensuring atypical workers receive their holiday pay entitlement – rolled up holiday pay has been found to be unlawful by the courts – what other alternative action could be taken
Review recommended: Right to request
‘The government should introduce a right to request a direct contract of employment for agency workers who have been placed with the same hirer for 12 months, and an obligation on the hirer to consider the request in a reasonable manner.’
‘The government should act to create a right to request a contract that guarantees hours for those on zero hours contracts who have been in post for 12 months which better reflects the hours worked.’
Government recognise that only a small proportion of the workforce will benefit from this recommendation so instead are considering these two recommendations in the wider context that all workers should have more choice, where possible, in how and when they work including having a right to request a more predictable and stable contract.
‘We accept the principle of individuals having a right to request a more predictable and stable contract and this consultation seeks information as to how best to implement this.’
Review recommended: Strengthen the ‘worker voice’
‘The government should examine the effectiveness of the Information and Consultation Regulations in improving employee engagement in the workplace. In particular, it should extend the Regulation to include employees and workers and reduce the threshold for implementation from 10% to 2% of the workforce making the request.’
This consultation will be used to gather further evidence before government fully assesses the merits of the recommendation. Wider views are encouraged as to how government can improve the worker voice in the workplace more generally and input from all stakeholders will be extremely valuable.
|
CIPP comments: The CIPP policy and research team will be publishing a survey and running a roundtable to gather your views, experiences and responses to the proposals put forward in this paper and to the questions being asked. Further details will be forthcoming through News and in the Policy hub but in advance of that expressions of interest are welcomed to [email protected]. Please write Increase transparency in the subject line of your email. Thank you |