From the start of April, businesses will be affected by a number of significant changes to employment law:
Increase in holiday entitlement (from 1 April)
The statutory annual leave entitlement is increased from 4.8 weeks to 5.6 weeks, including Bank Holidays.
Increases to sick pay, maternity pay and adoption pay (from 5 April)
The revised weekly rate of statutory sick pay will be £79.15. The prescribed weekly rate of statutory maternity pay, paternity pay and adoption pay will be £123.06.
Flexible working extended (from 6 April)
Employees who are parents or carers of children up to the age of 16 receive an extension to the right to request flexible working.
Repeal of statutory dispute resolution procedures (from 6 April)
The existing statutory dispute procedures have been repealed in favour of the ACAS Code of Practice.
Mandatory filing of PAYE information online (from 6 April)
Employers with 50 or more employees must file their employees’ starter and leaver information online. Failure to comply could result in a penalty for the employers.
New P45 forms (from 6 April)
New P45 forms are to be introduced by HMRC. The new forms will be A4 in size with additional fields for the employee’s gender and date of birth. The old ones will no longer be valid.
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