Big changes are on the horizon for employment legislation in Northern Ireland, and HR professionals need to be ready. Christine Quinn of Legal Island will chair the discussion, with legal expertise from Seamus McGranaghan of O’Reilly Stewart Solicitors, to help you prepare for what’s coming in 2025 and beyond.

We’ll cover:

•    'Good Jobs' Bill
•    Domestic Abuse (Safe Leave)
•    Draft Programme for Government

Understand how these developments could impact your organisation and what steps you can take to stay ahead.

Documents referred to in this webinar can be found here:

1. The ‘Good Jobs’ Employment Rights Bill - Public Consultation
2. Our Plan: Doing What Matters Most
3. Domestic Abuse - Safe Leave Public Consultation
4. Safe at home Safe at work.pdf
    

Transcript:

Christine: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Employment Law at 11, sponsored by MCS Group. My name is Christine Quinn. I'm a Knowledge Partner here at Legal-Island. I'm joined as usual by Seamus McGranaghan of O'Reilly Stewart Solicitors. You're all very welcome this morning.

So this is our rescheduled webinar from February. Thank you so much for bearing with us. We don't cancel webinars lightly. It was unfortunately necessary on that occasion. So thank you very much for your patience and for joining us again today, of course.

What are we going to be talking about today? So overarching is what changes are coming in 2025. We're going to start off by talking about the Good Jobs Bill. It's a lovely big meaty piece of legislation that has been consulted on. So we're going to tease out the highlights for you.

We're also going to be talking about the Programme for Government. When we were preparing the webinar, it was in draft form, but as of this week it is now an actual programme. So we're going to talk to you about that.

And then we're also going to talk to you about the Domestic Abuse (Safe Leave) consultation as well.

So you'll find some useful documents in the handout section of the webinar. Please do have a look at those. As usual, please drop in your questions as we go along.

Thanks as always to our sponsors, MCS Group. MCS help people find careers that match their skill sets perfectly, as well as supporting employers to build high-performing businesses by connecting them with the most talented candidates in the market. If you're interested in finding out how MCS can help you, head to www.mcsgroup.jobs.

So, as usual, we're going to kick off with a few polls to get you guys involved. When Gosia gets a second, she's just going to put up the first poll for us. Really, we want to be finding out a bit about what's giving you a headache in work at the moment. So you can select all that apply, please.

We've got the Good Jobs Bill and how it's going to impact your organisation, absences from work, bullying and harassment, mounting costs on employers, or something else. And if you just drop one or two words into the question box, that will tell us what it is that's giving you that headache.

I can see everything jumping up and down. We've got around the 50% mark on the Good Jobs Bill at the minute, but absence from work is a very high percentage there. We're up in the 60s there. Bullying and harassment, we've got at 11% currently. And mounting costs on employers, we've got jumping between 34% and 35% there.

So, if we could end the poll, let's have a look at those results. Fifty per cent of people, Seamus, saying that they're concerned about how the Good Jobs Bill is going to impact their organisation. Good news for us. We've picked the right topic today. Were you expecting that, or what are your thoughts?

Seamus: Yeah, I think that there has been . . . we know that we're out of the consultation period now in relation to the Good Jobs Bill. We're waiting to see what is going to materialise as a result of it. Hopefully we'll get through what some of those expectations might be this morning. But I do think with the implementation of the draft Programme for Government, that will spearhead and move things along. We can have a chat about that as well.

But look, there are obvious issues and concerns for employers. There are some big-ticket issues involved in the Good Jobs Bill, and I think that there's preparation work that will need to be done for employers to prepare and get ready for that.

And particularly around some changes that we'll see in legislation and increased rights for employees, particularly around the likes of the work-life balance aspects that could cause some difficulties for employers.

We did an education conference yesterday, and some of those issues in schools, like timetabling and how one person coming out of the jigsaw puzzle can completely unravel everything. And that can happen in places of work too.

And this change, a lot of this might become day-one rights. So we are going to have to get our feet moving, I think, once the implementation of all of this happens.

But hopefully, we'll see some good guidance pieces coming through following the consultation, and some assistance provided by some of the statutory bodies, typically Labour Relations Agency, some of the unions, and the Equality Commission will no doubt step up to the plate and give us guidance.

But it could be certainly an opportunity for tricky tribunal cases and further claims arising as a result of all of that too. So it keeps us on our toes coming through the first quarter of 2025.

Christine: Brilliant. And absence from work, that is something in Legal-Island we are seeing a lot of questions on. I think there's just such a variety of ways people can be absent from work now. It's gone beyond the kind of long-term sick or short-term absences. You've also got more family-friendly rights. You've got all of us being absent from the office more often in that we're working remotely in a hybrid environment. So are you seeing a lot of stuff like that on your desk at the minute?

Seamus: Yeah, I mean there's always a sort of high level of queries that come across my desk that relate to absence from work. I think also that recently what I've noticed a trend in is that employers are moving back to a position of grievance, and disciplinaries arising and a lot of the grievances arising from disciplinaries that employers have brought.

What I see a lot of is where employers are now back to the position of dealing with competency in the workplace. And naturally, what tends to flow and happen is that issues are raised, performance reviews are done, and someone goes off on sick as a result of it. So I am certainly seeing an increase in relation to that.

Generally, as well, we're coming out of the winter, and we've officially started spring. We've seen glimmers of that, I think, over the past two weeks or so. So we should be naturally sort of coming out of that flu season where you get the colds and the flus. So it maybe has been a lot of hard weeks there where there have been difficulties.

And even on top of that, the storm that we had that essentially stopped production for a full day, and employers seeing, I think, a decline. I've had a lot of that, a decline in work productivity that day and whether it was genuine or not. Some people lost electricity and lost utilities and weren't able to work from home.

But a bit of that has come across my desk as well, sort of frustration that this was a normal working-from-home day, but productivity seemed to have almost ceased on that day. Certainly, for office-based workers and things like that, it was almost like you had a day off.

So I think just employers are coming back to the point maybe where there has been such a monumental change as a result of COVID, recruitment problems, retention problems, salary issues. And I think we're sort of just getting back on our feet now.

I can see that things are moving back towards that challenging aspect for employers where there are expectations to meet standards of work, productivity. And I think when those are put into the mix and dealt with, you do see a rise in absence from work as well.

Christine: Bullying and harassment only being at 13% there, I did expect it to be higher. And certainly, the conference we were at yesterday with the education sector, that was a big topic of discussion there. Kind of disciplinaries leading to bullying and harassment allegations against management and grievances being raised on the strength of that. If two people are accusing each other of bullying and harassment, how on earth do you continue with the working day?

So slightly surprised that that's just so low at 13%, but the mounting costs on employers at 35%, I can certainly see why that's an issue. I've just got a lovely letter from my kid's after-school club putting the price up again because of the National Insurance going up. So I'm sure a lot of people got that, and a lot of businesses are putting their costs up for their customers, aren't they, because of that. It's just a reality.

Seamus: I mean, I think that in and around 1 April kicks in for a lot of the increases for national living wage, national minimum wage, and the knock-on effect of pension contributions and costs of benefit packages and things like that as well that employees get too.

As employers, we've had to move substantially, and the purse strings have been loosened, and there is bite back in relation to that. I think that almost every day on the local news here, different types of industries being affected in different ways.

And it was funny. I was looking at a property matter there on Monday and went to see clients, and they had an estimate in relation to extension work that they were going to do to the building. We were saying, "You might need to go back and revise your figures", because costs have just so substantially increased even from 2023 again.

So all of those factors are in play, and there's no doubt that businesses are struggling to get the balance right in relation to compensating employees fairly and appropriately, but not affecting your bottom line and your profit margins also.

Christine: Brilliant. Gosia, if you could just put up the next poll, that would be brilliant. The next poll really is around remote working. So is your organisation planning to reduce or stop remote working? We've got yes, we have plans to reduce, or yes, we have plans to stop, or no, not at the moment. So this is a single choice. If you can click whatever is most appropriate for you.

The background to this is really . . . I don't want to mention his name too much, but Trump and co. over in the U.S. have massive changes going on there with DEI. They're not fans of remote working, Trump and his colleagues, I would say. So there is a bit of a rollback going on. The press certainly seems to be pushing this idea that remote working isn't good for business.

So what's the thoughts in Northern Ireland? We've got at 19% people are saying, "Yes, we have plans to reduce". Only 6% have plans to stop it. And 75% are saying there are no plans at the moment to reduce or stop.

So, Seamus, what are your thoughts on that?

Seamus: I mean, I think whatever way we look at it, 20% of plans to reduce home-working is substantial. I know we can look at the broad line figure of 75% are "no, not at the moment", but 20% is a lot.

And I think that you hear it all the time. Again, on the radio during the week, there was a debate on, and one of the presenters on the show was saying, "My view is if you can work on a laptop and do your job from a laptop, you do not need to be in a workplace. You can do that adequately from home". It's that versus the other arguments around.

Maybe, I think, employers are seeing some difficulties now arising and thought processes going back to, "Well, why are we meeting remotely when, really, we could have a much more collaborative, better way of doing things if we were able to do that face to face?"

And I think the reality is there are limitations whenever someone is working from home. I think that had been a necessity, and it's possibly down to a point where it has been tolerated. And there does seem to be a bit of a shift. I know other employers that are certainly tightening up.

That would accord with the plan to reduce rather than stop, at 6% with a plan to reduce it. And what that means for me is there's a requirement to be in the office, whatever that requirement has been, that it is increasing. So if it was three days, it's now going to four. There does seem to be a push in general from a lot of employers that, "This has to be the way that we're going to proceed".

I think it depends on which business you're in and which industry you work in. There are some industries where you're just not able to work from home, and you have to go to your workplace to do your job. But I think that the rollback is happening.

And funny enough, I used to see . . . And this is just my own view, but I had sort of said Tuesday was the new Monday, because Tuesdays were almost a harder day in terms of email traffic. Mondays and Fridays were a lot lighter. And I'm now finding that the Monday is back to being a Monday again. I find it's hardcore on a Monday where that had, for me, sort of slipped.

You'd sort of fallen into a false sense of security whenever you had a light Monday and thought, "Everything will be all right for the rest of the week". But now it seems to have gone back.

For me, I think email traffic is lighter on a Friday, and whether that is synonymous of . . . Friday has always been a traditional day for a lot of industry that we'd finish early even on a Friday, and maybe finish at half two on a Friday and stuff like that. And so it tends to be a lighter day anyway on a Friday, but that's where I see that it has moved to.

And I wonder, do a lot of employees favour the Friday working from home and is that a less productive day? Not necessarily. Just because you're not getting a lot of emails doesn't mean that you're not. A lot of people will save difficult projects, difficult work, to work at home where there are no distractions and they're able to get things is done.

So there are lots of arguments in and around, but the feeling is that there definitely has been a pullback from the ability to work from home, and then just the reasons for that and even employees' general own experiences, I think, themselves as to how they're finding this continued period of working from home all the time.

Christine: Yeah, I think it comes down to personality types, doesn't it? I mean, I remember during COVID, I think, by the end of the first week, I was going stir crazy not being able to get out and talk to people. My husband was loving life, and I still think that if there was Wi-Fi on the top of Cave Hill, he could take his laptop up there and never speak to another human being and he would be very, very happy doing that. I think there are those personality types.

I like being with people quite a lot. Not all the time. I like other people in small measure. But there is an awful lot to be said for being in the office with people. I do get a bit lonely at home now, which I never thought I would say. So I love it when we have our office days.

Legal-Island are implementing different ways of getting us together. We all go in once a month for all-staff training. It's always a great day. You get to have coffee with people. You get to share lunch with them. I really enjoy that.

So I think there are ways to do it and there are ways to suit everyone's personalities. But yeah, interesting to look behind the headlines there anyway, Seamus. So thanks very much for that.

If we move on to the webinar proper, so to speak, the Good Jobs Bill is a big old juicy piece of legislation, really. I've pulled out some of the highlights, and I'll rattle through them. We've got zero-hours contracts, fire and rehire, trade union rights, flexible working, neonatal leave, carer's leave, right to disconnect, and employment status. All of those are kind of the good meaty issues that are covered in that bill.

Now, the consultation was carried out. What are your thoughts on it, Seamus?

Seamus:  Look, at the start of all of this, if anybody was listening in or has listened in since, we generally do a sort of mid-year review in Employment Law at 11 around June time, and we did flag with Mark McAllister at the time of the Labour Relations Agency what was coming down, and we talked about what we might consider.

It was very quickly after that, actually, that the consultation period opened on 1 July 2024, and that was with the former economy minister, Conor Murphy. There have been some changes as a result of that.

And we had a bit of a chat yesterday around whether that had maybe stifled things slightly for the Good Jobs Bill. I think politically there has been more of a focus on getting the Programme for Government done and dusted.

But the minister's statement at the time, whenever this was brought out, was that this was a Good Jobs Bill consultation and that they had identified these four key objectives, which were particularly around terms of employment, pay and benefits, voice and representation, and work-life balance. And there are juicy apples in each of those aspects that we would look at.

The consultation period closed in September, and I suspect then that we'll get to see some developments happening as a result of that now coming forward.

There was talk about draft legislation being implemented by March 2025.

Christine: We wish.

Seamus: So we'll give that a bit of . . . They said a draft implementation of legislation in March with the possibility of implementation then happening in late '25 or early '26. So, look, there's still time and everything else to work through that process.

But really, looking at the types of things, on the terms of employment, the zero-hour contract aspect is interesting. Language used and the notification provided at the time in relation to the Good Jobs Bill, they talked about the consultation would look at the growth of insecure and precarious forms of employment. This is their wording, such as, and they said as an extreme example, zero-hours contracts.

So I would be very surprised, I have to say, if there isn't some sort of change coming down the line in relation to it. We can look over the border in relation to the Republic of Ireland and what they have done in and around zero-hour contracts. But really, I think the guidance itself talked about lessons learned from ROI, and it talked about what's restricting the use of zero-hour contracts to very specific circumstances.

They talked about, and we've talked about this on our webinar before, the banding of hours and a fairer way to distribute hours for staff, and then also payment of compensation where there's a shortage of hours, where you're required and then you're all of a sudden not required.

And I think for a lot of businesses here, particularly hospitality, zero-hour contracts work quite well. Banking staff and the likes of the medical professions for nursing, banking staff, it works very well. And it's a take it as you get it. If you want to do the work, you do it. If you don't want to do it, then that's fine.

But we do know hundreds of tribunal cases, maybe thousands of tribunal cases, even recently where someone is querying, "But I've been doing this job for five years. I've been consistently getting for three years 20 hours a week, and all of a sudden, the plug is pulled on me. I view that I am an employee. I'm not a zero-hours worker because of conversations that have happened and what my custom and practice has been".

The other big one that they talked about was the bogus self-employment and this idea of trying to tie down self-employed contractors who HMRC don't get to tax in the way that they probably like to. There's no doubt there's a look to try to tidy that up.

We see big steps happening in England, and we know some of the celebrity cases that have happened with the likes of Jimmy Carr and Chris Evans, and some of the video personalities over there as well that have a contract through a limited company and then they're contracted by the limited company and are avoiding a taxable position. And that's sort of HMRC's aspect in relation to it.

But also, the risk for those employees on the other side of it is they're losing rights on things like national minimum wage, family-related leave and pay, redundancy rights, SSP, termination and unfair dismissal issues as well. So it's not all great. And again, I think there's a way here for this Good Jobs Bill to resolve those issues.

Agency workers, I think, will also get some assistance in this. They talk about the issue of the loophole around the Swedish derogation and removal of it.

And then particularly what I find interesting was they said around fire and rehire . . . in the actual document, it talks about the disgraceful practice of fire and rehire. So this is a real stance.

Christine: They're taking a moral stance.

Seamus: Yes, this is a real stance, I think, taken by . . . And you could miss it unless you actually sit down and read the document. You could miss some of the fairly powerful language that they're using at times that, on a good debate on the radio, you would hear somebody for and against, and you're coming out with.

So it talked about the disgraceful practice of fire and rehire, a tactic to pressure workers to accept reduced terms and conditions in order to keep their job, and the reviews sought on how to combat this practice. So clearly it's Department of Economy saying, "This is not something that we are happy with".

And we know lots of the cases that we've read and talked about over the years, some of the large supermarkets that went to employees and said, "Here's your P45 and here's your new contract of employment".

Christine: Yeah. It's unusual for them to take that moral view because, first of all, I don't believe that it is a huge problem. Maybe they drafted this after the P&O story broke, but I don't think it's something that people are doing wholesale by any means.

I don't think in my career I ever advised on fire and rehire. I would always have said, "There are other things that can be done way before that", and the clients never reached the point of being backed into that corner. So I don't think it's as big a problem maybe as the department thinks it is, and maybe it was a motive at the time that they wrote it.

Seamus: Yeah, and I think there's great guidance. I'm not sure if it's a code of practice, but there's definitely a guidance piece on the Labour Relations Agency in terms of negotiating changes to terms and conditions and how you can go about doing that.

Fire and rehire is extreme. I know as a solicitor, and you were probably the same, when it was mentioned, you kind of thought to yourself, "Best to avoid that". It's not something that sits comfortably.

Also, then, when we come to pay and benefits, allocation of tips, that's always been an issue. Tips and trunks and all of those sorts of things. Again, looking at HMRC issues in and around that.

Changes to the holiday calculation reference period is one that I think we might get some helpful assistance in relation to it. But again, there's an acknowledgement there it's different in Northern Ireland in comparison to GB and other parts of the UK. Hopefully we'll get some clarity around all of that.

The other interesting one around paying benefits is that right to disconnect. And again, looking to ROI and what they have done. I'm not hugely impressed by the right to disconnect, and I don't think that it has made substantial changes for people. Maybe in certain industries it has, but I think the ability to have something enshrined in legislation to protect your ability when you need it is helpful.

On the voice and representation side, we know that there is a general move to assist trade unions and things. They talked about outdated restrictions make it difficult for labour to organise. It's a bit of a minefield. Unless you're dealing with trade unions on a regular basis, it is very difficult, I think, as an employment lawyer to keep on top of all of that. Or even to find the resources and look at the legislation is tricky. It's complex areas and they seem to be wanting to try to make that easier and assist trade unions as well.

So we're going back to the point of that it is a Good Jobs Bill. At the outset of all of that, the minister, I think, had talked about what was the proposed outcome of that, and it was to give people comfortable roles and jobs and a work-life balance. And I think that they're doing what it says on the tin.

The last one and the more interesting one is probably the work-life balance aspect. Just to pick up on a couple, you've mentioned about the neonatal care. They are looking to bring in rights for carers, and there's a piece in it that the consultation said that the goal would be to ensure carers are availed of paid leave and that this could cost up to £6 million a year.

Statutory requests for flexible working to become a day-one right, no longer having to wait for the 26 weeks. And again, stronger protection for pregnant women against redundancy, an extension of the protected period, with a look to maybe moving maternity leave out to 18 months after birth.

Those are big issues. And whether there would be an appetite for that as well for women that are in professions and that are career-orientated and their goal is there, whether they would want to take as long as 18 months. Or would they like the flexibility to say, "I took a shorter period on my first baby, and I want to take a longer period on my second", or something along those lines?

Again, paternity leave, changes around paternity leave, particularly around the fact that you don't have to take it in the unified two-week block. And again, that's going to be a day-one right, and you won't have to wait to your 26 weeks.

So we can see that there is absolutely a push on to make things fairer. And just whenever we were reflecting and talking yesterday, we'd said about the total fear that we had at the time of the bonfire of rights and the sunsetting on European legislation and things like that. And where we are at now is we seem to have moved in the other direction.

And equally as well, we have situations where GB are following some of the things that we are doing, and we're sort of ahead of the game in some of those things as well.

So it will definitely be an interesting time, I have no doubt about it. We'll need to keep an eye on outcome of the consultation and where exactly things are heading. I think what we'll definitely need is good guidance pieces around where . . . And of course, we'll do our bit on Employment Law at 11 to sort of digest and break that out when the time comes.

Christine: And I know the LRA are seeking opinions at the minute for their programme going forward. So if you have a chance to get onto their website and have a look at that.

But I think what I've heard through the grapevine is some of these . . . So I think it's unlikely that you're going to get hit with one massive employment bill that covers all of these things at once. If you look at the wording and some of the aspects of the consultation, you can start to guess what they're going to do.

I would think maybe there's going to be some guidance on zero-hour contracts, maybe some guidance around the fire and rehire. Even though they use quite strong language in relation to it, I don't know whether they're going to have a huge amount of the bill dedicated to it.

So I think we'll start to see some drip-fed smaller pieces coming through in the forms of guidance, first of all, and then we'll maybe see a larger employment bill. But I think we need the new economy minister to bed in a bit, let her get her feet under the table, and then we'll see how much she's going to push that.

I would be very keen to get a lot of this stuff rolling. I think it's a long time coming. We are getting further and further behind our neighbours, and it's starting to become a little bit embarrassing that we're so far behind. But yeah, let's watch this space.

Let me see. We have a couple of questions coming through, actually, Seamus. I'll take this opportunity now. So this is a question relating back to the remote working. "Can the employer demand employees have their camera on for meetings? And how do we handle it when an employee refuses to do so?" We all dread those meetings with the black boxes, don't we? They're so odd to be on. So what can you do about it?

Seamus: I think, first things first, as always, what is the policy in relation to that? That needs to be clearly communicated, and it needs to be available.

I personally find it really awkward and difficult when someone doesn't put their camera on and I have mine on. And sometimes out of pure determination, I will leave mine on in defiance.

It's not great whenever you're just looking at a black screen with your own face on it. I mean, I think part of the communication aspect is that you're remotely looking into somebody's eyes rather than having them sit across the way from you.

And there are times, absolutely, whenever the connection is bad, and someone will say, "Look, I'm going to turn my camera off because my connection is bad", and the connection is bad, and that's okay. But I think that repeated aspect of . . . I think it's rude, and I think it's disrespectful to colleagues.

I think if someone is refusing to do it and they're in breach of a policy and that they've been told, I think I would be having the informal chat, first of all, about it and explaining the reasons as to why you want the camera on.

I think if someone was to email in advance and say, "Listen, I've had an accident or an injury at the beautician's today. I'd like to keep my camera off", I think where there are reasonable circumstances, absolutely don't have a difficulty with that.

But I think where you have somebody of a repetitive nature that keeps their camera off, and it's against the policy, you can well end up in a disciplinary process as a result of that. And unless they can give you some justification or reason for it, I think if the policy says your camera should be on, it should be on.

Christine:  Sounds like there's a story behind that beautician analogy there, Seamus. Did a spray tan not work at one point or something for you?

Seamus:  ..... No.

Christine:  We've got another great question here. So you've mentioned more protection leave for carers. Will such individuals have the right for a minimum amount of days per year, and would that be prorated? I suppose we are kind of waiting to see what's going to happen with that, but have you got any sense of what they're planning?

Seamus: I think that the general position is that when we know someone is having a difficult time, whether it's to look after an elderly parent or a child, I think employers are genuinely quite good with that. It gets to the point, though, where it does become a problem for productivity and issues.

And I suppose the big one during COVID was always the issues around childcare and how you manage childcare whenever there were no schools and there was no facility, no day care, nurseries, or anything like that. I see a lot of my clients, that's a real frustration for them around childcare. "Sorry, I can't come in today. My child is sick". It is a reality, though, of life. But I think where the frustration happens is where it is a regular occurrence that has taken place.

So I think that when it comes to carers, the idea here is that where there are genuine circumstances of someone who is caring for a sick partner or child or parent, that it is to build in and around that.

There's talk of that sort of 10 days' paid carer's leave in relation to it. And I suppose that when we get on to the Domestic Abuse (Safe Leave) legislation, it's always the worry that how is that going to be managed, and is it open to abuse? Can someone just ring it up and say? So I think it'll be good to see guidance. It'll be good to see commentary around how that should be managed.

I think you need to be careful about it because we have things like associated disability claims, those sorts of things as well. But there has to be, I think, more than just someone being able to lift the phone and say, "I can't come in today because of X, Y or Z".

So I think that the onus should be on the employee to explain the circumstances around why they would be seeking carer's leave and what the background to that is.

I don't anticipate that you're going to have a situation where you're going to have a fit note or anything like that in relation to it. So it is about evidencing that and an employer's reasonable expectation of what the employee can give them in order to give assurances that there's an actual need there in respect of the carer's aspect.

Christine: Yeah, it would seem unlikely that they could put a cap on it, or maybe they'll put a cap on the number of paid days. But I don't think you can say, "Your child is not allowed to be sick again", or, "Your elderly mother is not allowed to have a hospital appointment again". It's that fine line. I can't see there being a cap on it. It'll be a wee bit like the dependant's leave.

We've also got a question. "What are your thoughts on SSP changes coming to NI?" Now, certainly my understanding is SSP comes from HMRC as opposed to . . . Am I right in saying that, Seamus? It comes from HMRC? It's not a devolved matter even though it's employment. Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Seamus: Yeah, that's my understanding. Within the Good Jobs Bill, there is talk around . . . Even the national minimum wage is dealt with by London, and there is discussion within that about pulling that power back and letting us in Northern Ireland, our parliamentarians, our MLAs, deal with national minimum wage and things like that.

But yeah, that's my understanding, is that it's an HMRC issue. And there used to be the day that you could reclaim back the SSP, and to an extent, I think that was a big change for employers, that they become personally responsible.

There's maybe some chat around what the rate of the SSP would be as well. And that might be similar to . . . there's a certain reduced amount that can be provided, but it would be more than what the current rate is, that there might be some increase or hike to SSP. But based on what your weekly wage is, it might be weighted in that sense.

Christine: So essentially, we believe if the changes do come in, it'll be UK-wide. So it will include Northern Ireland at that point.

Seamus: Yes.

Christine: Mindful of the time here, Seamus, I think the meatier piece of legislation really is the Domestic Abuse (Safe Leave), so if we have a chat about that. I mean, we've had the legislation since 2022. Just before the assembly collapsed, they snuck it in, and we were looking to be . . . Northern Ireland was leading the charge, really. We were ahead of the rest, ahead of GB, and we were ahead of ROI.

But ROI have leapfrogged us in the interim period. They now have their actual piece of legislation that they can use. We have no guidance. It's on the statute book, but it's not a usable piece of legislation. So they've consulted on it, haven't they, Seamus?

Seamus: Yes. This was one of the things before Stormont collapsed. So we actually have legislation with Royal Assent and everything in place, just no commencement date in relation to it.

So what they did was they . . . the assembly approval was in 2022, Royal Assent on 12 May 2022. Then we had the collapse of Stormont. So we've no commencement date yet. But then what we did get was in July 2024, again, former minister Conor Murphy, Department of Economy, has put the legislation out for consultation. And what he said at the time was this progressive legislation will give workers who are the victims of domestic abuse up to 10 days' paid leave in each leave year to deal with issues related to domestic abuse.

And at this point, as well, we would be one of the few countries that would have that type of legislation in. I think that in early January 2025, there was a private members' bill tabled in House of Commons in relation to it in GB.

But Conor Murphy also said at the time that once implemented, Safe Leave will provide important workplace support to some of the most vulnerable in our society. And that's the interesting point, is it's a workplace support. It isn't just necessarily about saying, "You're going to get 10 days' leave if you're in difficult circumstances relating to domestic abuse". It's more than that, and there are onus and responsibilities that are placed onto the employer in relation to this workplace support aspect of it.

The purpose of the consultation just was to take the views of the usual sort of workers, employees, trade unions, support organisations.

So we don't have clarity yet, but essentially what we have is we're going to have 10 days' paid safe leave each year for the purpose of dealing with issues related to domestic violence. It's going to be a day-one right. So the day you start your job, you're going to have this right.

And it is for victims of domestic abuse and for dealing with issues related to domestic abuse such as, and this is what it says, "for you to be able to obtain legal advice, attend court, locate alternative accommodation if you're moving out of your place of home, if it's just you or with your children, to obtain healthcare and also to obtain welfare".

This idea of protecting family members, and it's that aspect that it isn't just, "I'm injured, and I can't come in today because I've been assaulted, and it's a result of domestic abuse". That might be what puts it in your mind, what [inaudible 00:41:26].

Christine: Yeah.

Seamus: But it is these other aspects of the employees coming along to say, "I need the day off. Today I'm not going to be able to come into work, and I want to use my domestic abuse entitlements here because I have to attend court. I have to go and get a non-molestation order", or, "I have to go and take legal advice and meet with my solicitor and my counsel in the High Court because I need affidavit evidence that's done", or, "I need to go and speak to the housing executive because I'm going to have to source alternative accommodation".

So it's not just about that, and I think that that places an onus on employers. I'm not saying that employers need to be involved in an employee's domestic abuse circumstances, but the fact that it's workplace support, I think, increases the involvement of the employer one way or the other.

Some questions, I think, that have been flagged about it are is a single issue enough, or does it have to be a series of events that are known to the employer? What are we allowed to ask the employee about the domestic abuse? Are we allowed to say, "How long has this been going on?" It's really private, confidential information. Do they need to be connected to the abuser? Does there have to be connection between the abuser and the victim?

And the 10 days per year, what about carryover? How does it impact on . . . I mean, I think what we're fairly clear on is you can't be on holiday and be using this at the same time. The two won't work.

How do you request it? What notice is needed? And the point in the guidance, or what we have is that it has to be as easy and accessible as possible, and that your requirements have to be proportionate, is what they say. So big words. What does it all mean in the background? I think that's where we get a comeback coming from the consultation.

One thing that it says is that you do not have to provide evidence that you've been a victim of domestic abuse. So you don't have to show a police report or a police number, or, "I'm going into work today to show off the personal injuries that I've sustained as a result of this", or, "I'm going to take photographs of my home that has been damaged as a result of domestic abuse and send to my employer to support it".

I think you're going to be in difficulties if, as an employer, you're doubting someone and saying, "Well, give me some evidence of it. I need something to prove it".

And then what will the payment be? They talk about the usual rate of pay.

Christine: Yeah, which begs the question and spawned a thousand employment tribunal cases.

Seamus: Yeah. So lots of issues in and around that.

What's really helpful at the minute, Christine, is that there is a guidance piece that has come from the Labour Relations Agency that they've done in association with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and it's the Northern Ireland Committee of it. And I think that you've put that into the . . .

Christine:  Yes.

Seamus: When you read that, you'll see that there is much more involvement. The bottom line is, and we always beat the same drum, you're going to have to have a policy in place. And really helpfully, within this guidance piece, there is a draft policy that you can work from that's contained within it. They give a precedent there for it.

It talks about things about what we would expect to see in line with a lot of this guidance that comes forward. We have to foster a culture of openness, that we'll have to break the silence around domestic abuse, and encourage conversations to happen so that employees feel comfortable raising issues and seeking help. Training is going to be required in relation to it. You need to review all of your other associated workplace policies so that they're joined up and that your domestic abuse policy interacts with everything else.

So a lot of interesting stuff, legal implications arising as a result of health and safety if somebody comes and tells you that they're suffering from domestic abuse and then they are dismissed or there's some kind of detrimental treatment as a result of that discrimination.

We know that it's not always, but women statistically are the greater numbers when it comes to domestic violence. And the other side of it is the unfair dismissal, adjustments to disciplinary capability or absence procedures because of the fact that someone is undergoing domestic abuse. So lots of considerations.

And again, I agree with you. I think that this will be a standalone piece of legislation that will be brought in. And I think the difficulties are for an employer to manage this, and particularly around do you spot the signs of somebody or a colleague in work, and do you have the freedom and ability to go to them and say, "Can I ask you, are you having difficulties at home or anything that you want to share with me?"

Typically, in those types of scenarios, that could be a red flag for an employee who will be unhappy and embarrassed about being approached by it. So I think we really do need to see some good guidance coming through that can give assistance to employers, because I think if you continue to ignore it and you think that it's happening and you ignore it, there are potential repercussions to it.

Christine: Yeah, and I think we picked this out particularly to talk about today because in the Programme for Government, they have specifically said there's a commitment to ending violence against women and girls. They've got the legislation sitting here. This would be an easy win, to use a very poor phrase, but they could actually get something through on this. So watch this space. This will be sooner rather than later, this piece of legislation, I think.

On the Programme for Government. Seamus, we have overshot massively. We got chatting as we normally do, so I'm very briefly going to skim through Programme for Government. We were very excited that it was coming out, but it doesn't actually cover as much employment law as we hoped it would.

The main takeaways are people, planet, prosperity, and cross-cutting commitment to peace. So all the Ps and none of the Es for employment law, unfortunately. So I'm sorry we didn't get to talk about that a bit more today, but believe me, we've covered more pertinent issues, I think, because the Programme for Government doesn't really cover a lot of employment. So apologies that we did overshoot there.

But I suppose my takeaways for today. Firstly, change is coming, but as usual in Northern Ireland, the pace is slow.

Secondly, the vacuum in legislation caused by the absence of the assembly for so long. Now, the slow pace of change means what we are seeing in Legal-Island is a lot of employers are opting for best practice approach rather than waiting on the legislation.

There are some companies out there already that do have domestic abuse policies and ways of dealing with it. We do have companies committing to a lot of the . . . Belfast Business Promise, one of their commitments is not to use zero-hours contracts. So people are already starting to do these things as best practice.

And thirdly, the main takeaway is stay tuned to Employment Law at 11. We will keep you up to date with what's happening, and keep in touch with Legal-Island for regular updates.

On that note, we have some new eLearning in Legal-Island. We've got Modern Slavery at Work, Anti-Bribery and Corruption at Work, and coming soon, we've got Conflict of Interest at Work. So if you are interested in a trial of any of those, you want a sneak peek at any of those sessions, please do get in touch or have a look at legal-island.com/elearning.

And if you miss me and Seamus, you can check us out on Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Podcasts. You can catch up. I know lots of you do listen in as the podcast, so thank you very much for doing that. We really appreciate it.

In the meantime, you can also get in touch with Seamus and I on LinkedIn. We do like to hear from you. Please do connect to us and please drop us any ideas you have for upcoming discussions, and we'll make sure that we address your issues.

Apologies for the overrun today. Thank you very much for your time. Have a lovely Friday and a lovely weekend when it comes. Thanks, everyone.
 

Sponsored by: