283: And finally a look forward to what’s happening in employment news for January 2021

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has published a report, ‘How coronavirus has affected equality and human rights’, warning that the pandemic may reverse progress made over recent years in five key areas of life: work, poverty, education, social care, and justice and personal security. The report notes that the biggest initial impact of the pandemic in the labour market has been underemployment (ie a fall in average hours of work), although unemployment is now rising significantly. Women, young people, disabled people and ethnic minority groups are most likely to have suffered reduced earnings due to furlough or redundancy. The EHRC’s report also sets out some recommendations for government to ensure that equality and human rights issues are integrated into its pandemic response. These include mandatory monitoring and reporting of employment statistics for disabled people and ethnic minority groups; implementing previous commitments to extend maternity protection; and introducing a right to flexible working from day one for all jobs. The EHRC has also confirmed that it will continue to monitor and report to Parliament on how the pandemic is affecting equality and human rights and that it is working on recommendations for urgent action to tackle racial inequalities.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has launched an open call for evidence seeking views on challenges to progression in low-pay sectors, the benefits of progression to employers and localities, and examples of good practice across the country. Persistent low pay is concentrated in the retail, hospitality, unskilled manual labour, business support services and care sectors. The DWP is seeking input on specific questions including identifying the barriers to progression in these low pay sectors; the benefits and approaches to nurturing existing talent; the barriers to progression by changing jobs or sectors; the use of role models and mentorships; and how to embed a culture of lifelong learning in the workforce.

Following consultation, the Information Commissioner’s Office has published detailed guidance on how to deal with subject access requests (SARs) under the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR). This is intended to simplify the process and speed up response times. The guidance covers the circumstances in which the response period may be paused to allow for clarification of a SAR; determining when a SAR is clearly unreasonable, which includes considering whether the response required is proportionate when balanced with the burden or costs involved; and the costs which can be included when charging a ‘reasonable’ fee for excessive, unfounded or repeat SARs. This fee may include staff costs, copying, postage and other expenses involved in transferring the data to the individual such as the costs of discs, envelopes and USB devices. Further resources to assist with responding to SARs are being developed, including a guide for small businesses.

The Department for Education has published research by the Learning and Work Institute which considers how employers are using their apprenticeship levy funding and whether this is spent on existing employees or new recruits (‘Levy paying employer decisions and accounting for prior learning’). This highlighted that employers are largely using their levy to upskill existing staff rather than to recruit younger apprentices or people seeking to change career, including using it to replace previously offered training such as leadership and management courses. Employers’ decision-making is mainly influenced by financial considerations, with most employers seeking to recoup the full levy spend and wanting a more immediate return on investment, as well as by the availability of suitable apprenticeship standards. Many employers involved in the research are expecting to expand their use of higher-level apprenticeships as the standards become available. The report recommends that the government should now consider whether the research findings align with its aims for the apprenticeship programme and the intentions behind the levy.

The Ministry of Justice has published the employment tribunal quarterly statistics for April to June 2020. Single claim receipts rose by 18% to the highest level of single tribunal claims since 2012/13, reflecting the rise in unemployment and changes to working conditions during the pandemic. Caseload outstanding rose by 31% and disposals of cases decreased by 21% compared to the same period in 2019. Multiple claim receipts and disposals dropped by 43% and 47% respectively, while caseload outstanding increased by 6%. Annual compensation and costs awards have also been published. In 2019/20, a total of 160 discrimination cases were awarded compensation, with the highest award of £266,000 being for disability discrimination. Age discrimination claims received the largest mean average award (£39,000) as compared to other types of discrimination. No awards for religion or belief discrimination were recorded. The average unfair dismissal award decreased to £10,812, from £13,704 in the previous year.

The CBI has launched its ‘Change the Race Ratio’ campaign which is calling for all businesses to publish clear targets and take tangible action to achieve greater racial and ethnic diversity at board and senior leadership levels. The campaign identifies four key commitments based on the Parker Review findings:

• ensure that FTSE 100 companies have at least one racially and ethnically diverse board member by the end of 2021 and FTSE 250 companies by 2024;
• increase diversity in senior leadership by setting stretching targets and publishing them within 12 months;
• publish a clear action plan to achieve these targets and report on progress in Annual Reports or on company websites, including disclosing ethnicity pay gaps by 2022 at the latest; and
• create an inclusive culture by means of improving recruitment and talent development processes, mentoring and sponsorship, data collection and analysis and working with a more diverse set of suppliers and partners.

The government has published its Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules setting out details of the new UK immigration system, with most of the changes taking effect on 1 December 2020. The main changes include a new Skilled Worker route to replace Tier 2 (General); a new Intra-Company Transfer route allowing more flexibility to bring employees to the UK from overseas linked companies for short-term assignments; greater flexibility on the activities that individuals on visitor visas can carry out; and a new immigration route for Hong Kong British Nationals (Overseas) from 31 January 2021.

The Financial Conduct Authority has published an interesting article for employers on improving diversity objectively, emphasising that although statistics provide an essential benchmark for assessing success, it is important to have a clear grasp of what the numbers can and cannot show. Perhaps most importantly, a statistically diverse workforce does not guarantee that staff feel included or that they have an equal impact in decision-making. This means that ideally organisations should consider ways to quantify inclusion as well as reporting on diversity, although the authors stress that the science of measuring inclusion is still at a formative stage. The article sets out ideas to help organisations identify unwanted imbalances, allow changes in diversity to be tracked over time, and take corrective action when needed. As we have seen with the Covid-19 pandemic, unexpected changes in working patterns may result in sudden shifts in diversity and inclusion. This highlights the need for systems measuring diversity to be reviewed regularly to ensure that the most relevant metrics are being captured and reported. (‘The people science revolution – improving diversity objectively’: FCA Insight)

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