Stress absenteeism is on the rise

Stress has for the first time been officially identified as the UK’s most common cause of long-term absence for sickness. This is the key finding of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and Simplyhealth annual Absence Management Survey, which also showed that 39% of employers have experienced an increase in stress-related absence during the last year.

The report also reveals a direct link between mental health issues and job security, with employers planning to make redundancies in the next six months significantly more likely to report mental health problems among employees.
According to CIPD Adviser Dr Jill Miller, “To a large degree, managing stress is about effective leadership and people management, particularly during periods of major change and uncertainty. Line managers need to focus on regaining the trust of employees and openly communicating throughout the change process to avoid unnecessary stress and potential absences. They also need to be able to spot the early signs of people being under excessive pressure or having difficulty coping at work and to provide appropriate support.”

In addition, employers have a duty of care for the health, safety and welfare of their employees. If it can be shown that an individual’s stress is due to excessive pressure or harassment at work, they might be able to make a successful case against their employer by showing that their illness was caused both by their working environment and the employer’s failure to provide the duty of care they owed. Such an employee will also in all likelihood need to prove that the employer either knew or should have known that the working environment actively exposed the employee to the risk of mental illness.
This is difficult to prove, unless there were clear indications before the diagnosis of stress that something was wrong. If this is the case (if the employee kept bursting into tears, for example) then the employer needs to find out what the problem is and how it should be resolved.

While courts look favourably on employers who provide a confidential counselling service, this tends only to be within the scope of larger organisations. Smaller businesses might be well advised to consider providing external occupational health service providers as an element of staff benefit packages.

If you are concerned about the psychological environment at your business or place of work, contact our employment law team who will be able to explain the responsibilities involved in employers’ duty of care.

The true value of sunlight...

While not all the hype surrounding the money to be made from installing solar panels on your property and selling surplus power to the National Grid can be fully justified, there certainly are homeowners out there gaining an inflation-linked, tax-free 10% annual return on their investment.

Particularly in this low interest-rate environment, such opportunities are rare indeed. But it appears as though the current generosity of the Feed-in Tariff (the amount the Government pays for surplus power) may not have long to run – under new Government proposals, it is expected that a review will cut returns by around 50% from next April for anyone whose installation has an eligibility date on or after 12 December this year. Anyone who is already on the scheme before that date will continue to receive the full tariff for the full 25-year term.

A new breed of company has recently sprung up offering to install panels on your property for free, giving you the benefit of over £200-worth of free electricity every year. This might be attractive to many, but all homeowners should be aware that in agreeing to the deal they are effectively signing away the Feed-in Tariff altogether.
Contact us for an initial conversation if you feel that you have been misled by one of these companies into accepting their offer without knowing all the facts.

Taxman goes for gold

Businesses and individuals planning to benefit commercially from the London 2012 Olympic Games have been warned that they might attract the close attention of HM Revenue and Customs during the build-up to the great event.

This is because HMRC wishes to ensure that such businesses are paying the taxes that they owe, and that they are not exploiting migrant and low-skilled labour by paying less than the minimum wage. In fact, HMRC is even planning “street sweeps” to find non-compliant businesses in the build-up to the Games, and has already carried out a raid on 11 off licences in and around the London borough of Newham.

However, it is not only local businesses that could be caught in the taxman’s spotlight. During the summer, HMRC also warned the construction companies – many of which are national and international businesses – that some were breaking the law by incorrectly registering some employees as self-employed. In addition, it is telling the employers of the 70,000 ‘Games Makers’ who are volunteering in various roles to ensure that tax due on travel or accommodation expenses is paid.

If you are concerned that your business does not currently comply with Government regulations in any way, contact us for help in putting the right systems in place.

New rules for employment tribunals

Major changes were announced this autumn to the UK’s employment tribunal system, which the Government hopes will save UK business around £16 million each year.

The most important change is a rise in April 2012 from one year to two in the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims, doubling the time that a former employee needs to work for an organisation before being able to seek compensation. In addition, employees will be charged to lodge a claim from April 2013 in a bid to reduce spurious or unscrupulous claims from being lodged.

A consultation is currently underway under the leadership of the Ministry of Justice that aims to set the level of fees to be paid by claimants, although it is expected that these will start at around £250, rising to £1,000 if the claim progresses to a hearing.

Currently it is believed that these moves will reduce the annual number of tribunal claims by around 2,000 each year. However, it is likely that a proportion of claimants will ‘fast-track’ their claims to beat the timetable, resulting in a possible peak of such cases before next April. Contact our employment team if your company is threatened by a possible tribunal case.

All change for capital allowances

Businesses need to be getting ready for forthcoming changes to how they obtain tax relief on their capital expenditure under changes to the Capital Allowance regime announced by Chancellor George Osborne in this year’s Budget. This is the latest in a series of changes to Capital Allowances that have been made over recent years.

The biggest single change to be made, which will be introduced in April 2012, is to the annual investment allowance. This used to enable companies to write off 100% of money spent on plant and machinery (not including cars and plant for leasing) up to a value of £100,000. From next April, this will be reduced to £25,000.

Other allowances will also fall, including the Writing Down Allowance and the Long Life Assets Writing Down Allowance, which take the place of commercial depreciation that is not allowed for tax. For full details of what these changes involve and how they might affect your business’s capital expenditure plan, visit www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget-updates/autumn-tax/tiin1310.pdf.

On a more positive note, new improved allowances may also be introduced to help businesses in enterprise zones, but these will depend on the outcome of current consultation.

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Agency workers update

New Agency Workers Regulations have now been in force since the beginning of October. They are designed to ensure that a worker who is provided by a temporary recruitment agency or other intermediary to a hiring business receives treatment that is the same or no less favourable than that given to a permanent member of staff.

For this reason, the hirer might choose to identify a “comparator” within the business – that is someone with the same level of responsibility as the agency worker who therefore receives the same basic working conditions as them. From now on businesses and agencies face significant penalties if they are found not to abide by the regulations – so it is worth understanding the rights to which agency workers are entitled.

From day one of their employment, they must have the same access as a comparator to staff canteens, childcare and transport services, and to be kept informed of job vacancies. After 12 weeks, their pay must also be equal, including fees, bonuses, commission and holiday pay relating to the assignment. They also have the same working time rights, including any annual leave above that required by law.

Contact us if you want a full explanation of the possible impact of the Agency Workers Regulations on your business.

What lies beneath?

We are all fully aware of the need to survey a house or other building before buying it. But perhaps most of us are not so conversant with the idea of paying for a desk-top environmental survey on a plot of land, enabling us to fully understand what it has been used for in the past before committing to its purchase.

The wisdom in doing so is for a very simple reason – if the land provides a conduit or “path”
for a pollutant to reach an environment or person who may be harmed by it, as owner of the land you will be held responsible for cleaning it up. It does not matter that you did not initiate the problem.

As well as clean-up costs, which can be very high depending on the seriousness of the contamination, you may also be liable to criminal prosecution.

Naturally, carrying out investigations before purchase means you may be able to mitigate the cost of this work by reducing the price you pay. Contact our property department to talk through your situation regarding land you own or are planning to buy.

Dishonesty during divorce?

It is disturbingly common for one spouse undergoing divorce proceedings to deliberately hide valuable property from his or her partner when decisions are being made about the fair division of the couple’s wealth.

While many of the ways used to hide wealth are dishonest but not actually illegal – such as keeping artworks and other valuable assets at the office rather than at home, or building secret retirement funds – others are clearly against the law.

In any event, under the circumstances even normally legal actions can be recognised as hiding assets, which is not permissible during divorce proceedings.

Illegal means of hiding wealth include failing to report income on tax returns, making payments to close friends or family members for services that have not been rendered and even paying a salary to employees who do not exist.

If you suspect that your partner is being dishonest about his or her true wealth, contact our family law team to discuss the actions which you should take. In any event, make sure that you have documentary evidence of the true position of your household and business finances before divorce proceedings are initiated.

Tracking the digital footprint...

An increasing problem for executors responsible for ensuring that the true wishes of a deceased person are respected is the growing “digital footprint” that is making its mark on most of our lives. With e-mail, online banking and social networking accounts protected by password it is proving increasingly difficult to get a complete picture of a person’s affairs after death.

As a result, there is now a call for people to include directions around their digital world within their wills, including usernames and passwords. Indeed, a recent report from London University’s Goldsmiths College and webhosting company Rackspace shows that some 11% of UK adults have independently considered providing such details.

Part of the issue today is that email providers and social networking companies have been slow to develop a common policy on how to handle the death of a customer; for example, while MySpace and Facebook both allow family members to close down a profile, Yahoo! denies access to emails altogether, while Google requires a court order.

People should consider this issue when drawing up a will, and help to make life as easy as possible for executors to get to grips with the intricacies of their estate. While no one wants to update their will every time they change a password, keeping a secure centralised record of passwords is a practical alternative.