What amounts to a dismissal?
For the purposes of collective consultation, making someone redundant and/or changing terms and conditions of employment, by termination and re-engagement, is also classed as a dismissal by reason of redundancy and so has the exact same consultation requirements.
Related FAQs
Although these measures fall short of the level of assurance given to employees both in terms of eligibility for an immediacy of access to payments, they are a vast improvement on the support for self-employed workers that has been put in place until now. Current support includes:
- Access to business interruption loans
- Self-assessment tax payments that were due in July 2020 have been deferred until January 2021
- VAT is deferred until the next quarter
- The introduction of Time to Pay arrangements under which deferrals for HMRC payments can be agreed
- The minimum income floor for universal credit has been suspended which will allow self-employed workers to access the equivalent of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)
- Universal credit and tax credit payments to increase by £1000 per year
It would be prudent to take legal advice early in relation to any issue you foresee in performing a contract. This will allow you to:
- Ensure that initial contact with your counterparty is framed in the correct way
- Ensure that any variations are fully documented so that both parties are fully protected
Employers have a statutory right to require employees to take annual leave at their direction, subject to providing staff with notice equal to at least double the length of the leave that you are directing them to take (e.g. 10 days’ notice for five days leave). However, this measure is not likely to achieve any urgent cost savings or alleviate immediate cash-flow pressure as holidays would need to be paid.
Clearly, annual leave can be taken on furlough so you could have staff on furlough and annual leave.
All policies will impose a stringent obligation, often with time limits, for you to notify insurers of circumstances that may give rise to a potential claim under the policy and non-compliance may well negate your cover. If therefore you have potential cover under your policy you must make a precautionary notification to Insurers as soon as possible.
This will depend on the particular facts and the employee’s circumstances but an employee should co-operate with the employer so far as is necessary to enable compliance with any statutory duty or requirement relating to health and safety.
In addition, conduct outside of work can result in an employee’s dismissal if the conduct pertains to the employment relationship. If an employee breaches their lockdown rules and it affects their ability to work, such as it being no longer safe for them to attend work, or the reputation of the employer, these may be grounds for disciplinary action and subsequent dismissal.