How much notice do I need to give people to return to work?

If the business has areas requiring an increased workforce whilst others require a reduced workforce, staff can be retrained and redeployed across the organisation or even across a wider group of companies. This will not reduce the wage bill but will avoid the need for redundancies. Making fundamental changes to an employee’s role and duties will require their agreement following a fair selection and consultation process.

See above FAQ about whether you can demand that your employee has the vaccine.

Dismissal for failing to follow a reasonable instruction would be a possibility but it should be the last resort.

First you will need to be able to show that you have reasonable grounds for insisting that they have the vaccine. You will then need to demonstrate that you have taken into consideration the reasons why the employee has refused and why they are not considered reasonable. Before taking a decision to dismiss you should look at alternatives such as other duties/other roles.

• Audit
  • Identify your off-payroll contractors
  • Determine the status of off-payroll contractors
    • CEST – HMRC employment status checker for tax purposes
• Communication – liaise with affected workforce
• Contracts – get them compliant
• Consider the Ward Hadaway toolkit

The Act was obviously subject to much debate and criticism as the Bill passed through Parliament. It is difficult to properly assess any gaps until after the necessary secondary legislation has been published and comes into force (along with the remainder of the Act), but some of the likely issues include:

• The impact on the insurance market, and the (lack of) availability and increased cost of insurance in light of the provisions of the Act
• How the introduction of retrospective claims will affect the market, both in relation to how parties might go about trying to prove matters which are 30 years old, but also the lack of certainty for those potentially on the receiving end of these claims which they previously had by virtue of the Limitation Act provisions
• Whether the definition of higher risk buildings is correct, or will require some refinement.

The Martlet v Mulalley case provides some useful observations and clarifications, for example that designers cannot necessarily rely on a ‘lemming’ defence that they were simply doing what others were doing at the time, that ‘waking watch’ costs are generally recoverable, and commentary on certain specific Building Regulations. The judgment however made clear that much of the case turned on its specific facts, so it is useful from the perspective of providing some insight as to how the Courts will deal with cladding disputes in future, rather than setting significant precedents to be followed.

The outbreak is certainly going to have an impact on new lease negotiations.

Undoubtedly many transactions will be put on hold or indeed stop entirely. Where matters are ongoing, tenants may well look to strengthen rent suspension provision.

It is also possible that tenants and their representatives will also now seek to include termination rights for unseen events. In this regard, the concept of force majeure may start to appear more often in leases.

In both of the examples above, such attempts are not likely to be well received from landlords who will undoubtedly suggest that tenants ensure that their business interruption insurance policies are robust enough to protect the tenant in the event of any future pandemic events.

Another approach tenants might adopt going forwards in negotiations for a new lease (or indeed seeking to vary existing leases), is to move away from the traditional market rent model to a turnover rent arrangement. This will offer some protection going forward if trading conditions deteriorate, but again getting institutional landlords to agree such an approach may prove difficult.