A guide to the 2006 TUPE Regulations (as amended by the Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 2014) for employees, employers and representatives
Revised TUPE rules come into force
4 February 2014
Changes have been made to the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE), which protect the employment terms and conditions of employees who are transferred from one organisation to another. The regulations have been improved to make sure both employers and staff are treated fairly when a transfer takes place. Under the new regulations: Businesses will now be able to renegotiate terms and conditions in collective agreements 1 year after a transfer has taken place, provided that the overall change is no less favourable. Micro businesses will be able to inform and consult employees directly when there are no existing appropriate representatives. Under existing TUPE regulations businesses usually have to inform, and sometimes also consult, employee representatives such as trade unions representatives; for micro businesses with 10 or fewer employees, there are often no representatives which means that they have to be specifically elected for this purpose; this change will make this process much less bureaucratic. The new employer will be able to engage in pre-redundancy consultation with employees, with the consent of the old employer. Contractual changes will be permitted for economic, technical or organisational reasons with the agreement of the employee and or where a contractual right of variation exists. In cases where employees’ terms and conditions are provided for in collective agreements, only the terms and conditions in the collective agreements that are in place before the date of transfer will apply; any future changes will not bind the new employer, unless it has taken part in the bargaining process that brought about the changes. The test for service provision changes will make clear that activities carried out after the change in provider must be fundamentally the same as those carried out by the previous person who has ceased to carry them out; this means that if businesses radically change the way they provide services, that change is unlikely to be subject to the TUPE regulations. The regulations also clarify the existing law in a number of areas:
Updated TUPE guidance can be found at Business transfers, takeovers and TUPE .
Acas guidance on TUPE changes
11 February 2014
A new set of requirements affecting business transfers and outsourcing came into force on 31 January. Acas has produced guidance on the changes to the law.
On 31 January 2014, new regulations on TUPE came into effect updating the 2006 regulations. Acas has produced a leaflet to help employers better understand what the changes mean and how they may affect their business. Acas are calling this a leaflet but it contains 20 pages of guidance . Acas will also be producing a full guide on TUPE and how to manage the process effectively which will become available in the coming months.
CIPP Policy News Journal
16/04/2014, Page 97 of 519
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