Each year we bring you our hopefully ever-popular annual reviews of employment law and with each year comes an increasing realisation that HR and employment law practitioners can no longer rely on the expectation that what happens in GB will eventually happen in NI.

The latter part of 2012 demonstrated that for better or worse Northern Ireland is in full devolution mode regarding employment law and key stakeholders were becoming more vocal on what direction they believed local employment law should go.

The balancing act of keeping all stakeholders happy is nigh on impossible and the situation is made more complex by the existence of constructs such as –
* GB parity principles,
* the influence of European legislation, and
* the unique idiosyncrasies that make-up the Northern Ireland economy and body politic

In November 2011 Vince Cable, the GB Business Secretary, announced reforms to employment law that spanned around twenty five substantive areas of employment law, covering everything from qualifying periods to claim unfair dismissal through to paying fees to get to tribunal.

Some of the reforms could be genuinely considered to be radical, whilst others are better defined as minor changes to systems. In NI the responses from the Department for Employment and Learning in May and November 2012 demonstrated that a new era had begun and that Northern Ireland was doing its own employment law thing and that simply changing a few references in legislation to bring in the GB-equivalent laws is not going to happen.

Delegates at our annual reviews received a table compiled by Mark McAllister of the LRA that outlined the key areas of change expected in GB and the differences between NI and GB employment laws expected as a result. Mark has kindly updated that table for Legal-Island readers and you will find it here:
http://bit.ly/UWeQFB

In terms of what is coming very soon to employment law in Northern Ireland, look out for the following:

* Changes to the statutory rates for calculating statutory redundancy pay and unfair dismissal compensation levels (usually February/March)
* Changes in unpaid parental leave provisions (18 weeks for parents of children up to the age of 8 etc) (due in March)

Personnel Today have indicated what they believe (from a GB perspective) to be the top 10 issues for employers to look out for in 2013:
http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/02/01/2013/59107/2013-employment-law-changes-10-things-employers-need-to-know.htm

And they also set out 10 cases to watch out for:
http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/02/01/2013/59106/employment-law-10-cases-to-look-out-for-in-2013.htm

Other GB reforms worthy of note include:

* The Disclosure and Barring Service checks becoming portable from March

* Repeal of parts of the GB Equality Act regarding discrimination questionnaires and third party harassment from March

* Occupational Pensions Schemes - To make consequential amendments following changes to State Pension age and the switch from using RPI to CPI for increases to occupational pensions - from Jan 2013

* Historic drivers hours - To make drivers' hours offences committed up to 28 days prior to an enforcement encounter ("historic offences") subject to fixed penalty notices and financial penalty deposit requirements - from April 2013

* The EU third driving licence Directive (2006/126/EC) - introduces new rules for driving licences which aim to reduce fraud, guarantee free movement of drivers and reinforce road safety - from Jan 2013

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Legal-Island
16 January 2013

Legal-Island's 2013 Programme of Events is sponsored by Carecall NI. Carecall is a leading provider of employee support services - Counselling, People Management and Development, Conflict Resolution, Change Management, Outplacement and Career Transition Services:
http://bit.ly/r0epY0