Trade unions had complained about how pensions are being protected against inflation, with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) replacing the faster-rising Retail Prices Index (RPI). The High Court has now ruled that the government's switch was lawful. This confirms a reduction in the value of future annual pension increases for millions of public sector pensioners. The policy also saves the government billions of pounds in the coming years and is a major area of disagreement within the public sector pensions dispute. Read the full press release from BBC News
WORKING TIME AND ANNUAL LEAVE
7 December 2011 If an oil and gas industry worker has a shift pattern of two weeks working offshore followed by two weeks onshore, can periods spent onshore count towards that worker's entitlement to
annual leave under Regulation 13 of the Working Time Regulations 1998? Yes, the Supreme Court has said in Russell v Transocean International . Daniel Barnett’s Employment Law Bulletin reports:
Such workers do not have a right to take their annual leave as time off from their offshore work. It is not necessary that holidays must always be taken from time that would otherwise be work. There is no qualitative requirement to test whether a given period can be counted as rest. A rest period is simply any period that is not working time. Any period when the workers were onshore would fall into that category. The employer was entitled to insist that annual leave was taken during the periods when the workers were onshore. Eversheds has also written an interesting report on this case.
LIVE IN HOUSEKEEPERS AND NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE
12 December 2011 What is the test for determining whether a domestic worker treated as a family member is ineligible for the National Minimum Wage under Regulation 2 (2) of the NMW Regulations 1999? Daniel Barnett’s Employment Law Bulletin reports: The test is to be approached holistically, there is no one single factor, such as the provision of accommodation, meals, or the sharing of tasks, which is decisive, says the EAT in Julio & ors v Jose & ors , a series of conjoined appeals. Whilst the exemption is to be construed narrowly, and particular regard should be given to the various factors in Regulation 2 (2), the entire arrangement and the nature of the relationship are relevant, with consideration to the general dignity of the worker's situation. The "sharing of tasks" relates to sharing tasks done by the family as a whole, not sharing the work done by the worker under the contract. The EAT rejected a literal approach to the requirement that the worker undertakes tasks jointly with the family, or that there should be some equivalence between the tasks done by the family and the worker, noting that every
CIPP Policy News Journal
09/10/2012, Page 58 of 234
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