S E R V I C E

FACT S E R V I C E

157 Childcare vouchers to lose tax breaks Data dampens recent optimism on economy

159 Public sector unions slate parties over pay Campaign aims to find blacklisted workers

158 Employment tribunal claims fall by a fifth English councils fail to collect over £1 billion

160 Workers say no to pay freeze at bus group Two more firms close their pension schemes How to combat attacks on contracts

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Childcare vouchers to lose tax breaks Tax and national insurance breaks on childcare vouchers will be withdrawn in stages starting in April 2011. Employees taking up childcare vouchers from April 2011 for the first time will no longer benefit from tax and national insurance (NI) breaks, while employees who are existing recipients of childcare vouchers with have their tax and NI breaks withdrawn from April 2015. Exact details of the changes will be announced in the Pre-Budget speech in November. The money that the government will save from withdrawing these tax and NI breaks on childcare vouchers will go towards offering free childcare for 250,000 two-year-olds by 2015-2016, the prime minister Gordon Brown has announced. A statement from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs said: “The government is not abolishing childcare vouchers, only phasing out tax relief for them. Vouchers are now well entrenched, employers will still be able to offer them, and existing users will be unaffected for five years.

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“The government is not removing any tax relief from existing users of vouchers for five years. [A quarter of a million] 250,000 two-year-olds — or 40% of all two-year- olds — will be able to access free places, which are in addition to the existing free provision for all three- and four-year-olds.” www.employeebenefits.co.uk/item/9504/23/5/3?nl=WN

Data dampens recent optimism on economy Manufacturing output was hit by the August closedown of factories for the summer break and maintenance closures. Manufacturing output in the latest three months to August was flat compared with the previous three months. There were welcome rises of 7.8% in the transport equipment industries, 9.3% in the wood and wood products industries and 3.1% in the rubber and plastic products industries. On the downside, there were significant falls of 2.8% in the paper, printing and publishing industries, 1.9% in the chemicals and man-made fibres industries and 1.9% in the electrical and optical equipment industries. Manufacturing is now 10.9% lower than the same three-month period a year ago.

LABOUR RESEARCH DEPARTMENT

Published weekly by LRD Publications Ltd, 78 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HF. 020 7928 3649 www.lrd.org.uk

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Output of the production industries (manufacturing, energy and mining) decreased by 0.2% compared with the previous three months and was 10.4% lower than the same period a year earlier.

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Keith Mizon, Acas director of individual dispute resolution, said: “Misunderstanding redundancy selection processes, which can be complex, or poorly communicating them, can leave people feeling unfairly treated.

www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/iop1009.pdf

Employment tribunal claims fall by a fifth The number of claims accepted by employment tribunals fell by a fifth last year, according to new figures from the Tribunals Service. Employment tribunals accepted 151,028 claims in 2008-09, a decrease of 20% on the 2007-08 figure (189,303), but an increase of 14% on the 2006-07 figure of 132,577. The total receipts figure for 2007-08 includes over 10,000 multiple claims from airline cabin crew that have been resubmitted a number of times during the year. Stripping out these claims means a decrease of 4% in accepted claims over the last two years. The number of multiple claims fell over the past two years and excluding the airline employees’ multiple claims, there has been a drop of 13% in the number of multiple claims accepted. However, there has been a recent increase in the number of single claims to 63,000 in 2008-09 — a 15% rise on a year earlier. When the jurisdictional mix of the claims — a claim on a number of grounds — is considered, there were 266,542 accepted jurisdictional cases, down by 10% on the 2007-08 figure of 296,963.

“We would encourage employers to contact us for advice on how to avoid or manage redundancies or movement to short time working properly before taking any action.” There were falls in working time directive claims, in part due to the high number of resubmitted multiples in 2007-08. Equal pay claims were down by 27% to 45,748, but still accounted for the second highest number of claims last year, while sex discrimination claims fell by almost a third (-31%). The total number of claims disposed of was 92,000 — an increase of 13% compared with 2007-08. Of the 172,900 claims disposed of (taking account of jurisdictional mix), 33% were withdrawn; 32% were Acas conciliated settlements and 13% were successful at tribunal. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) received 1,794 appeals and disposed of 1,933, compared to 1,841 and 2,026 respectively in 2007-08. At the EAT, 418 appeals were disposed of at a full hearing, compared to 466 the previous year. Meanwhile, the number of appeals rejected at the sift stage as having no reasonable prospect of success increased to 927 from 888 the previous year and for the first time exceeded half the number of appeals received. www.tribunals.gov.uk/Tribunals/Documents/Publications/ET_EAT_Stats_0809FINAL.pdf www.personneltoday.com/articles/2009/10/02/52392/fall-in-employment-tribunalclaims-no-excuse-for-employer.html

No doubt a sign of the economic times, the number of claims involving redundancy — failure to inform and consult at 11,371 was 2.5 times the previous year’s figure.

English councils fail to collect over £1 billion

Meanwhile, the number of unfair dismissal claims was up by 29% to 52,711 and also accounted for most claims; breach of contract claims rose by 31% to 32,829; and redundancy pay by 48% to 10,839 claims.

Uncollected council tax and uncollected non-domestic rates totalled £1.06 billion in 354 English local authorities, according to a new analysis from the GMB general union. The total amount of council tax uncollected was £636 million with a further £423 million of non-domestic rates not collected.

Conciliation service Acas pointed out the rise in unfair dismissal, redundancy payments and wages cases followed the pattern of previous recessions.

The Conservative/Liberal Democrat-controlled Birmingham City Council with £25.8 million had the highest amount uncollected last year. Conserva-

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tive run Westminster council in London ranked second with £23.2 million uncollected. The figures for the 20 councils with the largest amounts uncollected are shown in the table below. The political complexion of the councils show the majority are under some sort of Conservative and/or and Liberal Democrat control. A regional analysis of the figures showed London topped the league with a total of £244 million uncollected followed by the North West with £156 million, South East £143 million and Yorkshire and the Humber with £117 million uncollected. Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB, said, “These figures nail the lie about the Conservative Party and David Cameron’s boast that they would run the country like they do the Town Halls. If this is so just take Birmingham as a prime example. It will mean pay cuts for workers, job losses, uncollected taxes, worse services and bankruptcies.” Uncollected council taxes and non-domestic rates 2008-09

Birmingham Westminster Manchester Leeds Southwark Sheffield Bradford Salford Kirklees Croydon Camden Nottingham City Barnet Kingston upon Hull City of London Bristol Haringey Hounslow Derby Liverpool

Council taxes (£000)

Rates (£000)

Total (£000)

14,150 3,507 11,925 9,247 7,808 9,171 9,047 7,801 6,278 7,186 4,716 5,786 6,230 3,646 75 5,853 6,591 4,704 4,057 5,341

11,685 19,673 9,147 7,484 6,701 4,160 3,812 3,147 4,611 3,004 5,259 4,140 3,037 5,560 8,882 3,104 2,326 4,114 4,611 3,157

25,835 23,180 21,072 16,731 14,509 13,331 12,859 10,948 10,889 10,190 9,975 9,926 9,267 9,206 8,957 8,957 8,917 8,818 8,668 8,498

www.gmb.org.uk/Templates/PressItems.asp?NodeID=99118

Public sector unions slate parties over pay Public sector unions have criticised plans announced by both the government and the Conservatives to freeze their pay. Chancellor Alistair Darling has said he would freeze the pay of senior public servants. And shadow chancellor George Osborne said he would freeze public pay for 12 months — but not for workers on less than £18,000 and troops in Afghanistan.

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The PCS public and commercial services union said both parties were “playing politics with people’s lives and the services we all rely on”. General secretary Mark Serwotka said: “Rather than playing the disgraceful political game of who can be the toughest, the government and the Conservatives should be dealing with the gross unfairness and inequality of pay in the civil service and its related bodies.” Jonathan Baume, general secretary of the FDA senior public servants’ union, told BBC Radio’s Today programme that “a 0% increase is no way to motivate or reward anybody”. www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/news_centre/index.cfm/id/03498E82-78274855-A3C7C7713EFE950D www.fda.org.uk/Media/Whats-new/FDA-responds-to-the-Governments-proposed-payfreeze.aspx

Campaign aims to find blacklisted workers Construction union UCATT has launched a campaign to find all the victims of The Consulting Association blacklist. In March 2009, it was revealed that The Consulting Association (TCA), run by Ian Kerr, was operating a blacklist of construction workers. There were over 3,000 names on the blacklist and 44 major construction companies were using TCA’s services to blacklist workers. After the blacklisting scandal was revealed, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) established a hotline so that people who believed that they had been blacklisted could find out if they were on the list and could then request a copy of their file. However, it is understood that many blacklisted workers have not so far been identified. UCATT has now launched a poster campaign targeting sites across Britain, providing details of how workers can contact the ICO to discover if they have been blacklisted and how to access their file. If the workers are members of UCATT they are encouraged to contact their regional office at the earliest possible opportunity to see if they have a claim against the company/companies that blacklisted them. General secretary Alan Ritchie said: “Ian Kerr and the construction bosses ruined the lives of countless construction workers by operating a blacklist

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for decades. Everyone who was blacklisted has a right to know who blacklisted them and why. The blacklisters must no be allowed to get away with their despicable actions.” UCATT are seeking the maximum possible publicity for their campaign as many of the blacklisted workers may have been forced out of the industry in order to find work. “As blacklisting was not illegal, it is often extremely difficult to achieve financial retribution from the companies involved. However, every case is different and it is essential that all blacklisted UCATT members contact their regional offices to see if a claim is possible,” Ritchie said. www.ucatt.info/content/view/760/30/

Workers say no to pay freeze at bus group Two and a half thousand bus workers at FirstGroup are set to take strike action in some of the country’s biggest transport regions in mounting disputes over an imposed 0% pay deal. The strikes are set to go ahead as the company’s national management refuses to allow local management at its 19 subsidiaries to fund a pay rise for its employees. General union Unite is warning that unless the company alters its aggressive negotiating position, these strikes could soon be followed by others across the company’s largest regions, meaning that thousands of bus services will be hit simultaneously. The union has recently announced that members at Bury, Bolton and Wigan bus depots in the North West will take part in a further four separate days of strike action in October. Drivers have already held four 24-hour stoppages in the last few weeks. Unite’s attempts to resolve the pay deal by engaging the help of the conciliation service Acas in an effort to break the deadlock came to nothing as FirstGroup continues to refuse to budge on fair pay. Unite members at First’s Essex subsidiary have overwhelmingly voted in favour of industrial action. And strike ballots are being held at South Yorkshire, London and West Yorkshire subsidiaries, which are likely to join the growing rejection of the 0% pay policy imposed by First’s group board. Graham Stevenson, national organiser for transport, said: “Our members up and down the country are simply furious at First’s imposed zero per cent pay

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freeze and will not accept it. This dispute is set to escalate massively unless First rethinks its position. “This is a company with a record £134 million in annual profits but it refuses a fair pay rise to those who earn this for them. Other companies in the same industry are settling at around 2.5%.” www.unitetheunion.com/news__events/latest_news/unrest_grows_at_first_group_ as.aspx?lang=en-gb

Two more firms close their pension schemes Milk producer Dairy Crest is to close its final salary pension scheme to its existing members. The firm is to close its defined benefit scheme — which applies to 3,500 of its employees — in April next year. The company, which produces brands such as Country Life and Clover butter as well as delivering milk door to door, has cited risk reduction rather than cost pressure as the reason for the closure. Whitbread, the hotel, restaurant and café group, is also to close its defined benefit pension scheme to existing members. The move by the owner of the Premier Inn and Costa Coffee chains follows the closure of the scheme to new members in 2002. www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2009/09/dairy-crest-to-shut-final-salarypension-scheme.htm http://industry.bnet.com/travel/news-analysis/whitbread-pension/10704/

How to combat attacks on contracts Terms and conditions of employment are governed by a wide range of laws but in determining an individual’s rights at work the contract of employment is fundamental and remains the most important source of rights for workers. The latest LRD booklet, Contracts of employment — resisting changes explains clearly and concisely the main elements of contract law. It uses illustrative case law examples throughout and highlights the legal remedies for breach of contract. Contracts of employment — resisting changes, £5.80 a copy from LRD, 78 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HF or order at www.lrdpublications.org.uk/publications. php?pub=BK&iss=1475

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