The end is in sight for Childcare Vouchers
September 30, 2009
Having just implemented a childcare voucher scheme in my organisation, I’m quite surprised and a bit perplexed at yesterday’s announcement that the existing tax breaks on childcare voucher schemes are to be removed from 2015. The Government described the existing schemes as ‘badly targeted tax reliefs’, because apparently around one third of the tax relief goes to higher tax payers, which is a very small amount of parents in the UK. However 35,000 employers currently offer childcare vouchers, and this helps 340,000 families with their childcare needs.
Gordon Brown said that the reforms are being used to generate money that will be used to provide free childcare for lower earning parents. However as would be expected, many of the leading voucher providers have criticised the plans, as this will make family life and balancing the struggles of work and childcare more difficult for many. With the possibility of savings of up to £1,000 for parents that are involved in a scheme, this is quite a big dent on family income, and could have an effect on the number of parents that are able to work when they have children.
The option to reallocate holidays if sick
September 15, 2009
A recent ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has determined that if employees are sick whilst on scheduled annual leave, they may ‘re-allocate’ the days to another time, even if this means they cannot take the days in that holiday year and have to carry them forward to the next year.
This decision followed the highly publicised Stringer case earlier this year, which ruled that employees will continue to accrue their holidays when they are on long term sick leave, and that this could be carried forward if they are unable to take the leave in the current year.
This latest ruling covers situations when an employee is on holiday, and becomes sick. The ECJ has said that it is no longer allowed for an employer to say ‘tough luck, you lose those days’ if the employee is genuinely sick. And there lies the potential problem for a small number of employers; that this system is open to abuse from a handful of employees that may try to increase their holiday entitlement by claiming sickness during a period of annual leave. However it is recommended that the employee should provide clear medical evidence of the illness – i.e. a doctor’s note – to show that they would have been off work if they weren’t on holiday. In theory this could prove to be overruled as well in cases where the illness lasted less than 7 days, because employees can self-certify for this amount of time in normal sickness absences, however for now it is generally accepted that this is required to be able to reallocate holidays.
Jobcentre Plus; helping businesses and long term unemployed
September 14, 2009
With the grim news today that unemployment could continue to increase, and potentially not recover to pre-recession levels until 2015, there are millions of people relying on the services of Jobcentre Plus to help them return to employment. The numbers of people who are classed as long term unemployed is increasing as the time to find new work gets longer in the limited employment market, but at the same time many companies are still recruiting and potentially struggling to find candidates that meet their needs through their existing recruitment methods.
One effective way of tackling this dual problem is with a Local Employment Partnership (LEP). This is a scheme where the Job Centre helps to source candidates through the pool that is classed as long term unemployed, and if required may carry out pre-interview training or assessments to ensure that candidates with the right capability and skills are being put before employers. One employer that has recently found success with this scheme is John Lewis, where recent recruitment drives for new store openings have involved many LEP candidates, and the success rate for these applicants has been high. In addition to this, it has been found that those employees that were sourced through the LEP have been retained at 90%, which shows the benefits in terms of loyalty and commitment that can be found through this route. As Suzy Welby, manager of government initiatives at John Lewis highlights, the labour pool of long term unemployed people is growing and could be a great source of untapped talent:
“There might soon be three million unemployed, many of whom will have the skills we want, and that is not a group you can ignore.”
For more information on this subject visit the jobcentreplus website
New report highlights continuing gender pay gap
September 7, 2009
A new report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has highlighted the ‘shocking disparity’ in the way reward is applied between men and women in the financial sector. EHRC carried out an inquiry on 50 leading companies in the City and found that the gender pay gap is a shocking 47% in the sector, taking both bonuses and salaries into account. The national average pay gap between men and women is 17%.
The chair of the EHRC, Trevor Phillips, has commented on the findings by demanding that the sector addresses this issue. Phillips was formerly the head of the Commission for Racial Equality and has come under attack from a number of commissioners for his leadership skills and style since taking the helm of the newly formed EHRC, which requires him to lead on equality in age, gender, religion and belief, sexual orientation, disability and human rights as well as race.
A key reason for the pay gap in the financial sector could be the age profile of its workers – with most employees in the City at an age where women are most likely to have childcare needs. Campaigners for gender equality have highlighted the need to support parents with childcare initiatives and other measures that will encourage women to continue to work and support their progression in their careers. The Government has highlighted that the Equality Bill will continue to highlight these issues with the introduction of compulsory gender pay gap reporting, which will be introduced within large (bigger than 250 employees) organisations initially.