July - HR Review

Employment Law
The Forum of Private Business (FPB) has launched a website to offer free advice on employment law.
The site, www.smallbusinesschannel.co.uk, contains video-based information on business-related issues including employment law.
New research from the FPB shows that employment law costs small business ?2.4bn.

Construction ? Health and Safety Management
Directors will be legally forced to ensure good health and safety management and gangmaster licensing will be extended to the construction industry as the centerpiece of a hard-hitting government inquiry into the high number of fatalities on Britain's building sites published today.
The long-awaited report also calls for the appointment of a full-time minister of construction and measures to make it easier to prosecute directors.
This year the equivalent of one construction worker has died each week. The figure was down on last year but the reduction is explained by a severe drop-off in construction output as building groups mothballed sites after the collapse of the housing market. Construction still accounts for more deaths than any other sector ? more than 2,500 building workers have died in the past 25 years

Self Certification
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are currently considering emergency plans to change the self-certification sick note rules from seven to 14 days. These regulations would only be enforced for six months unless an extension was agreed upon, and is a result of the current swine flu pandemic.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) believes that employers should not be concerned about these proposals, as Ben Willlmott, Senior Public Policy Adviser, explains: ?The proposal to change the self-certification rules in the event of a serious flu pandemic is a pragmatic and temporary measure to reduce the burden on healthcare professionals and help prevent the spread of infection.

?Employers that manage absence and performance effectively and consistently have nothing to fear. The vast majority of absence is genuine and only a very small proportion of employees will seek to use this change in the self-certification rules to pull a sickie."

Background Checks
Background checks are increasing in their importance to recruitment, according to candidate verification service Experian Background Checking.
Experian has revealed that the volume of recruitment background checks carried out in the first quarter of 2009 has increased by 3% against the same period in 2008, despite a sharp drop in recruitment levels.

Experian says: ?The tightening of recruitment practices is a response to the wide pool of candidates that employers can now select from.

Compulsory retirement at 65 'could be scrapped'
While most people in the UK retire by the age of 65, 1.3 million continue working beyond that point.
The Government has announced that it has brought forward its review of the default retirement age from 2011 to 2010, as a result of changing demographic and economic circumstances.
Many see the announcement as an indication that the default retirement age of 65 will be scrapped.
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has described the decision as 'disappointing', arguing that 81% of employers already accept employee requests to continue working beyond the age of 65, and that having a default allows both staff and businesses to plan ahead.

Companies Act
The final stages of the Companies Act 2006 will come into force on 1 October. The Act includes measures designed to modernise and simplify company law and reduce the regulatory burden