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Resolving problems
Issues and problems can arise in any workplace. If not resolved they can cause lasting damage to individuals, to the business and to relationships. It is important to ensure there are fair processes in place to deal with problems and that organisations adopt a best practice approach. We run free training seminars and briefings and have guides, template policies and flowcharts to help. Where additional support is needed we offer free, impartial and confidential conciliation, mediation and arbitration services.
The Employment Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 (Commencement No. 3) Order (Northern Ireland) 2020
This Order brings into operation certain provisions of the Employment Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 on 27th January 2020.
Article 2(a) to (e) commence provisions on early conciliation of employment disputes.
Article 2(f) commences the provision which places an obligation on the Department to review early conciliation.
Article 2(g) and (h) commences the provisions that permits the Department to make regulations which provide that the members of the panel of chairmen of industrial tribunals and Fair Employment Tribunal may be referred to as employment judges.
Article 2(i) commences the provision which prohibits the Labour Relations Agency, or persons appointed by the Agency, from releasing information relating to a worker, employer of a worker, or a trade union, that they hold in the course of performing their functions.
Article 2(j) corrects a small number of references in the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992, dealing with statutory shared parental pay, which were introduced by the Work and Families Act (Northern Ireland) 2015
Article 2(k) updates legislative references in Schedules 2 and 4 to the Employment (Northern Ireland) Order 2003.
Article 2(l) and (o) gives effect to the dispute resolution repeals in Schedule 3 of the Act.
Article 2(m) and (n) gives effect to Schedules 1 and 2, which respectively, make minor and consequential amendments to existing legislation, and set out how the relevant time limits for bringing a claim will be extended where necessary to provide sufficient time for early conciliation to take place and to ensure that the claimant is not disadvantaged.
The Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (Administration) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2022
These Regulations provide for the funding of employers’ liabilities to make payments of statutory parental bereavement pay; they also impose obligations on employers in connection with such payments and confer powers on the Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (“the Commissioners”).
Under regulation 3, an employer is entitled to an amount equal to 92 per cent. of payments made by the employer of statutory parental bereavement pay, or the whole of such payments if the employer is a small employer. Regulations 4 to 7 provide for employers to be reimbursed through deductions from income tax, national insurance and other payments that they would otherwise make to the Commissioners, and for the Commissioners to fund payments to the extent that employers cannot be fully reimbursed in this way. Regulation 8 enables the Commissioners to recover overpayments to employers.
Regulation 9 requires employers to maintain records relevant to the payment of statutory parental bereavement pay to employees or former employees, and regulation 10 empowers officers of Revenue and Customs to inspect, copy or remove employers’ payment records.
Regulation 11 requires an employer who decides not to make any, or any further, payments of statutory parental bereavement pay to an employee or a former employee to give that person the details of the decision and the reasons for it. Regulations 12 and 13 provide for officers of Revenue and Customs to determine issues relating to a person’s entitlement to statutory parental bereavement pay. Regulation 14 provides for employers, employment agencies, persons claiming statutory parental bereavement pay and others to furnish information or documents to an officer of Revenue and Customs on request.
Fair Employment (School Teachers) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022
This legislation was enacted by the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2022 and came into effect on 12th May 2024.
From this date, it will be unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of religious or philosophical belief or political opinion in respectof the recruitment or promotion of teachers in schools in Northern Ireland.
Prior to 2003, FETO, and its predecessors, did not prohibit discrimination on the grounds of religious or philosophical belief or political opinion in relation to any aspect of the employment of school teachers. That was due to the effects of article 71 of FETO, commonly known as the teachers’ exception.
This situation changed through a process that began in 2003 when an EU equality law, Council Directive 2000/78/EC, required the exception to be modified and
narrowed. As a result, and since then, FETO has prohibited discrimination on its equality grounds in relation to most aspects of the employment of teachers in
schools; e.g. in relation to pay, training, absence and performance management,
dismissal, harassment.
Despite that change, FETO’s prohibition of discrimination did not apply to the recruitment or promotion of teachers in schools due to the continuing effects of one part of the article 71 exception that remained.
The remaining gap in coverage was filled on 12 May 2024 with the inrtoduction of this legislation.