Preparing for Autumn Employment Law changes

We are expecting important changes to be introduced this Autumn. In particular:

• the Equality and Human Rights Commission has committed to updating its technical guidance on sexual harassment in September, in anticipation of the new law on workplace sexual harassment which will take effect in October 2024. Once the updated technical guidance is published, we will review and update our equality policies in order to ensure alignment with the latest version;
• the new statutory right for workers and agency workers to request a more predictable working pattern is also to take effect this Autumn. The framework for making and considering a request will resemble the existing statutory flexible working framework. However, this is not expected to be a day 1 right and any service requirement, as well as the detail of how the new right will operate, will need to be specified in regulations. Once we have this detail, we will create a new policy which schools may choose to insert into their employment manuals.

We plan to publish our next Employment Contracts and Manual Update in Autumn 2024, in order to take account of these key changes as well as any other employment-related changes that might be confirmed following the general election. In the meantime, schools are invited to review our previous Updates using the OnStream portal.

For more information or advice, please contact Jessica Scott-Dye in our Employment team on 07799 901 428, or complete the form below.