News

Earlier this year the government launched it consultation to seek views on a number of proposals to amend the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations.

The government has now published its response to this consultation and it is expected that the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills will put the following changes to the regulations before Parliament in December, with the intention that they will come into force in January 2014.

The main changes are as follows:

• Allowing micro businesses (companies employing fewer than 10 employees) to inform and consult directly with employees - currently, there is a requirement to elect employee representatives.
• Clarity that for there to be a service provision change under the regulations, the service provision must be "fundamentally or essentially the same" as before the transfer. The government had previously talked about removing ‘service provision change' from what amounts to a TUPE transfer, however this is now staying.
• Any dismissal for which the principal reason is the transfer, or a reason connected with it, will be automatically unfair. However, if there is an economic, technical or organisational (ETO) reason entailing change in the workforce, then this will be a redundancy dismissal, subject to the usual unfair dismissal requirements for reasonableness. A change in the workforce currently means a change to either the numbers or the function of the workforce. Going forward the location of a workforce will also fall within the scope of an ETO reason, thus preventing genuine place of work redundancies from being automatically unfair.
• Allowing renegotiation of terms agreed from collective agreements one year after transfer, provided any changes are no less favourable to employees.
• The timeframe in which the current employer is obligated to provide employee liability information to the new employer has been increased from at least 14 days to 28 days before the transfer.

Watch this space for details of when these changes will come into effect...