We're almost at the end of 2013 and it's time for our annual round up email of employment law changes in Northern Ireland. In summary, things are coming to a head and look set to really change next year.

Ever since November 2011 HR and employment law practitioners in Northern Ireland have been awaiting the radical reform of employment law promised in GB. Slowly but surely reforms appear to be edging their way onto the horizon.

2012 was very much a "wait and see and look at GB" year and it was assumed that 2013 would be the year of incremental implementation but this has not been the case. The areas of reform were so numerous and disparate that to take each issue individually would have resulted in a patchy, disjointed approach which would have inevitably led to consultation fatigue for all stakeholders.

Instead the Department for Employment and Learning went for an holistic review and began consulting in July of this year with a view to completing the consultation exercise in November and perhaps we will have an idea how the consultation went by the time the Legal Island Annual Reviews roll around next month.

By now all practitioners will know the headline areas which are up for reform – unfair dismissal qualification and compensation, early conciliation through the Labour Relations Agency, neutral assessment, collective redundancy consultation periods, public interest disclosure and reform of industrial tribunal procedure. But the review is much wider and views are sought from all stakeholders:
http://bit.ly/142XfNR

Nothing will happen in relation to the above areas until 2014 but in the meantime things have been happening in employment law in Northern Ireland during 2013, including the introduction of five new Statutory Rules and one new Statutory Instrument, these changes included the following areas:

• Unfair dismissal basic award compensation calculation (increased the cap on a week’s pay to £450)
• UD maximum compensatory award rose from £72,300 to £74,200
• Increase in qualifying employee's right to unpaid parental leave to 18 weeks
• Employed agency workers returning from parental leave now able to ask for flexible working
• Increases in SSP to £86.70, increases in SMP to £136.78
• New Code of Practice on equal pay from the Equality Commission

The single Statutory Instrument that came into operation this month (October) was the amendment to the National Minimum Wage Regulations which saw the adult hourly rate increase to £6.31, the 18 but not yet 21 year old rate increase to £5.03, and the under 18 rate increase to £3.72.

The above changes represent the core statutory reforms in Northern Ireland employment law for 2013 and by any standard this would be considered a quiet year given that in some years we have passed up to twenty Statutory Rules relating to employment.

Meanwhile in GB reforms continued apace throughout 2013, primarily through the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act, bringing in sweeping reforms in late summer 2013 which included the following –

• The introduction of fees for lodging a claim to an employment tribunal
• The implementation of a fee remission scheme where applicable
• No qualifying period for unfair dismissals based on political opinion/affiliation
• Protected conversations (pre-termination negotiations in an unfair dismissal context)
• Power to and the amendment of unfair dismissal compensation (1 year salary cap)
• Re-naming compromise agreements to settlement agreements
• Significant reforms to the Public Interest Disclosure Act (Whistle-Blowing)
• Repeal of 3rd Party harassment provisions under the Equality Act 2010
• Abolition of Agricultural Wages Board

Other reforms in GB came via the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013, which essentially hailed the introduction of a new category of "servant" (to use the old legal term which carries no status connotations) called the employee-shareholder. These individuals, if hired as such, will be a new hybrid of staff who in essence will contractually agree to surrender their right to claim unfair dismissal/redundancy and flexible working related rights in return for shares in the company which must be worth at least £2,000.

This initiative is not seemingly being replicated in Northern Ireland and there remain a number of other employment law reforms pending in GB which are not mentioned in the DEL Employment Law Review consultation document or any other NI Department and thus it remains a bit of a mystery as to whether or not they shall ever materialise here and they include

• The abolition of discrimination questionnaires
• The Rapid Resolution Scheme using legal officers to desk-top easy claims
• The abolition of tribunal "wider recommendation" power
• Introduction of Health and Work Assessment and Advisory service (sick leave)
• Employee ownership under the Nuttall Review (different from employee-shareholders detailed above)
• Other equality-related reforms, such as caste discriminatio
• Review of Zero-Hours contracts
• Review of the Agency Workers Regulations 2010
• Whilst we may not know about what is happening locally, if anything, with those subjects above we do know that DEL are working away on the following areas and we should hear more about these in the near future including –
• The consolidation of the NI regulations on Working Time and the simplification of the associated guidance.
• The consolidation of the NI regulations on the conduct of employment agencies and employment businesses and simplification of the associated guidance.
• Procedural reforms within the Industrial Tribunals which have looked at reforms proposed via the Underhill Review in GB
• SME-related initiatives – as relevant to employment law compliance, pilot mediation and ADR schemes and embedding good employment practice.
• Detail on the future look of the NI law regarding TUPE, bearing in mind that in early September the coalition government unveiled the proposals for the new look TUPE in GB
• Detail on the extension of the right to request flexible working to cover all employees and whether it shall reside within a new voluntary code or remain as a statutory right to request a permanent variation of contract. (2014)
• Detail on the long-awaited shared parental leave and whether the traditional GB parity pathway will be retained here in NI, given the legal intricacies associated with social security and HMRC related law if the law differs from GB.(2015)

Clearly there is a great deal for practitioners in Northern Ireland to take in and as such you may prefer to look at our NI/GB comparative table. Please destroy previous copies and use this one dated 18.10.13:
http://bit.ly/XGF5za

Alternatively, if you are a glutton for punishment and want all the details, perhaps you may want a last minute seat at our Annual Review of Employment Law (see below for details).

There is little doubt that 2013 has been an interesting year and it will now be an opportune time for practitioners here to look at all the areas of employment law reform and ask:

• When is it due to come into effect in Northern Ireland?
• Do we need to do an employment law reform risk register?
• In order of priority impact, what do we need to look at first?
• Which policies do we need to audit and amend?
• When do we start?

Be honest, you already know the answer to the last question, don’t you?