Employment equality under the spotlight in this year’s Annual Review

In this year’s SLN Annual Review, Terra Firma’s Peter Grant Hutchison looks back at the year in employment law, from the controversial Trade Union Act 2016, with its 50 per cent timeout requirement to the application of the Equality Act at the European level. In Dansk Industri, he explains that the European Court of Justice “found that a Danish law that excluded those entitled to an occupational pension from entitlement to a severance payment based on length of service was age discriminating and contrary to EU law.”

He also warns about the impact of Brexit on anti-discrimination legislation, saying that “A considerable part and the most effective part of anti- discrimination legislation has originated in European law and in particular the Equality Directive (Council Directive 2000/78/E). More importantly it has been preserved and enforced by Europe.”

And, while the government has promised to pass legislation to preserve European enactments, “that is for the short term only”.

“The real question is whether the UK is prepared to immediately leave the Single Market in order to regain control of the movement of European labour. A considerable part of anti-discrimination legislation exists to ensure this freedom.”

Shepherd and Wedderburn associate Elouisa Crichton meanwhile updates readers on the Gender Pay Gap Information Regulations.

As Elouisa explains, “A gender pay gap does not necessarily denote a breach of equal pay law. Instead, it could mean there are barriers to promotion for women, or that women are not accessing more skilled and better paid roles within an organisation. In August 2016, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that the UK’s gender pay gap was 18%.”

The Regulations will cover with 250 or more “relevant employees” on 5 April each year, though the public sector is not yet covered.

All types of employer will be covered by the rules: “The employer could be a company, LLP, partnership, unincorporated body or any other employing entity. There is no requirement to aggregate employee numbers across a group of companies – where multiple group companies each have more than 250 employees, each would prepare a separate report.”

Those who fail to comply with the rules will fall foul of the Equality Act and the government is also planning periodic checks to ensure compliance.

View the Scottish Legal News Annual Review online here.