Businesses are being urged to take advantage of new guidance on forthcoming fire legislation safety changes, published by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Businesses are being urged to take advantage of new guidance on forthcoming fire legislation safety changes, published by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

From October 1st this year, the responsibility for fire safety will lie with employers, self-employed people with premises and those responsible for buildings with public access.

It will entail that employers have to ensure the safety of everyone who uses their premises and those in the immediate vicinity who may be at risk if there is a fire.

Sir Graham Meldrum, the head of Her Majesty's Fire Service Inspectorate, said the forthcoming changes would "do away with the existing 70 separate pieces of legislation and replace them with a new regime focussed on preventing fires happening in the first place".

Explaining that the new obligations would not entail that firms would incur greater costs, Sir Graham also maintained that those who did not comply could face prosecution.

The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 come into force on 1 October 2006.
The regulations (which will not affect the age at which people can claim their state pension) will:

• ban age discrimination in terms of recruitment, promotion and training
• ban unjustified retirement ages of below 65
• remove the current age limit for unfair dismissal and redundancy rights

They will also introduce:

• a right for employees to request working beyond retirement age and a duty on employers to consider that request
• a new requirement for employers to give at least six months notice to employees about their intended retirement date so that individuals can plan better for retirement, and be confident that "retirement" is not being used as cover for unfair dismissal

Scope of Regulations
The Regulations apply to employment and vocational training. They prohibit unjustified direct and indirect age discrimination, and all harassment and victimisation on grounds of age, of people of any age, young or old.

As well as applying to retirement they:

• remove the upper age limit for unfair dismissal and redundancy rights, giving older workers the same rights to claim unfair dismissal or receive a redundancy payment as younger workers, unless there is a genuine retirement
• allow pay and non-pay benefits to continue which depend on length of service requirements of 5 years or less or which recognise and reward loyalty and experience and motivate staff
• remove the age limits for Statutory Sick Pay, Statutory Maternity Pay, Statutory Adoption Pay and Statutory Paternity Pay, so that the legislation for all four statutory payments applies in exactly the same way to all
• remove the lower and upper age limits in the statutory redundancy scheme, but leave the current age-banded system in place
• provide exemptions for many age-based rules in occupational pension schemes

Guidance
http://www.dti.gov.uk/employment/discrimination /age-discrimination/index.html Acas has published good practice guidance on the regulations. Age and the workplace is available free online or can be ordered from the publications orderline on 08702 42 90 90. If employers need further help, they can register online for one of the Acas training courses.

The Government has published draft regulations amending the Maternity and Adoption Leave Regulations. These amendments arise from the Government’s response to the Work and Families Consultation in October 2005. The intention is that the amended maternity and adoption regulations will apply to the parents of children expected to be born or placed for adoption on or after 1 April 2007 and the flexible working regulations will apply from 6 April 2007.

Maternity and Parental Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2006, in force 1 October 2006, will, amongst other things

• remove the additional length of service qualifying condition for additional maternity leave, so that an employee who qualifies for ordinary maternity leave will also now qualify for additional maternity leave
• extend the period of notice that an employee is required to give to an employer of her intention to return to work before the end of her additional maternity leave from 28 days to eight weeks
• entitle an employer to make 'reasonable contact' with an employee while she is on maternity leave
• allow an employee on maternity leave to agree with her employer to work or undertake training or activities to enable her to keep in touch with the workplace for a limited number of days during the maternity leave period without bringing that period to an end.

The Paternity and Adoption Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2006 bring in the same provisions for adoption leave as set out above, apart from the removal of the qualification for additional leave.

The Flexible Working (Eligibility, Complaints and Remedies) (Amendment) Regulations extend the right to request flexible working to carers of adults. However, the employee must have 26 weeks qualifying service to be eligible to make a request and the adult to be cared for must be: married to, the partner or civil partner of the employee; a relative of the employee; or living at the same address as the employee.

Read more about work and families
Work and families choice and flexibility: Draft regulations on maternity and adoption leave and flexible working (PDF 269Kb)

DTI website: http://www.dti.gov.uk/employ ment/balancing-work-family- responsible/index.html

It applies to nearly all workers and sets hourly rates below which pay must not be allowed to fall. It helps business by ensuring companies will be able to compete on the basis of quality of the goods and services they provide and not on low prices based predominantly on low rates of pay. The rates set are based on the recommendations of the independent Low Pay Commission.

The National Minimum Wage will increase again in October 2006
The minimum wage is a legal right which covers almost all workers above compulsory school leaving age. There are different minimum wage rates for different groups of workers as follows:

• The main rate for workers aged 22 and over is currently set at £5.05 an hour. On 1 October 2006 this will increase to £5.35
• The development rate for 18-21 year olds is currently set at £4.25 an hour this will increase to £4.45 on 1 October 2006
• The development rate for 16-17 years olds. This rate is £3.00 an hour. This will increase on 1 October 2006 to £3.30 an hour
• On 1 October 2006 the rate of the accommodation offset will increase to £29.05 per week (£4.15 per day). The current rate is £27.30 per week (£3.90 per day)

From 1 October 2006, the Employment Equality (Age) regulations will abolish the Older Workers Development Rate and remove the age limit on the apprenticeship exemption.

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