Publications

Devonshires’ Employment Team is pleased to publish our programme of seminars/events for 2022.

The pandemic has changed the working world and influenced working practices. Last week, the UK’s largest four-day working week trial commenced, with more than 3,300 workers from 70 companies taking part. Unlike part-time working, where employees work less hours for reduced pay, the ‘4 Day Week Campaign’ will see employees work 80% of their usual hours for the same pay, with an expectation to maintain the same productivity and output levels that would be achieved over five days.

The Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill contains a number of headline grabbing planning reforms including street votes for neighbourhood planning applications, a national infrastructure levy and the introduction of National Development Management Policies.

From 1 July 2022, a wider range of healthcare professionals will be able to sign people off sick from work including registered nurses, occupational therapists, pharmacists and physiotherapists. It is hoped that the change will reduce GPs workloads and is part of the government’s plan to deliver an extra 50 million GP appointments a year by 2024.

Londoners returning to work after the long jubilee weekend were disrupted by tube strikes this week and further travel disruption is expected over the summer with both national rail and airline staff threatening industrial action.  Industrial action often stems from disputes over pay and/or job security, issues which are likely to be heightened as households begin to feel the pinch of the cost of living crisis. This article considers steps that an employer can take should it find itself in a position of industrial action being threatened.   

The Building Safety Act 2022 was introduced to Parliament in July 2021 and received Royal Assent on 28 April 2022. The Act introduces a regime for ensuring the safety of buildings, in particular “higher-risk buildings” (as defined within the Act).

Insurance law today is heavily influenced by the English and Scottish Law Commissions’ review in the past decade, which led to the Insurance Act 2015.

Tesco announced last week that they are trialling in-store office space providing desks, co-working areas and meeting rooms in an aim to allow workers access to local working spaces rather than having to commute to city centre offices. This novel scheme is in response to research conducted by Tesco, which found that 72% of workers prefer flexible working.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has reported that 1.8 million people in the UK are suffering the effects of long COVID. Last year, we published an article following ACAS guidance on long COVID and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has recently released a statement suggesting that long COVID may amount to a disability.

We have been working with a number of our RP clients to ensure their constitutions remain fit for purpose.

A round-up of the upcoming developments for charities.

We are pleased to have supported the National Housing Federation (NHF) and Campbell Tickell in preparing the new Code of Conduct, which was issued in May 2022.