The Chancellor’s first, and last, Spring Budget was closely watched to see what changes it would bring. Whilst there were no big employment law surprises announced, there were a number of initiatives which your clients should take note of.
The most significant announcement was the initiative of return to work support, or “returnships”. The government is granting £5 million of new funding to public and private sector employers to help people back in to work after a long career break. The support is available to both men and women, but is expected to help more women who are returning to work after time off for family reasons.
Your clients will also need to get used to seeing T-levels on application forms. From 2019-20, alongside normal A-levels, technical courses on offer are going to be consolidated in to 15 career focused technical education routes known as T-levels. These will double the number of hours training for 16-19 year olds and will have a technical work placement as part of the course to ensure young people have the required technical skills to enter in to work.
The announcement which gained the most headlines was the increase in Class 4 National Insurance Contributions (NICs) from 2018. Although this appears to only affect self-employed individuals, your clients should continue to assess the employment status of their staff to ensure they are giving them their correct rights. The financial consequences of this change, alongside not having the right to minimum wage, sick pay, paid holiday etc., could lead to incorrectly classed self-employed individuals bringing claims to determine their status at tribunal. The government is also going to consider whether the differences in parental benefits between the employed and self-employed need to be reduced.
Going forwards, the main financial changes will announced in an Autumn Budget with a spring statement being used to respond to financial forecasts.
