Welcome to Employment Edit, our regular update giving the pick of the key developments in employment law from the last couple of weeks:
- Employment status – The Court of Appeal has held in Halawi v WDFG UK Ltd (t/a World Duty Free) that a beauty consultant, who provided her services through a limited company, did not have a contract of employment or a contract personally to do work, and so was not in employment for the purposes of bringing a discrimination claim under the Equality Act. The case confirms that, under EU law, the essential elements of personal service and subordination must be present for there to be an employment relationship.
- Parental leave – The draft Maternity and Parental Leave etc. (Amendment) Regulations 2014 have been published. These regulations will extend unpaid parental leave to parents of children up to the age of 18, rather than the current age of 5, with effect from 5 April 2015.
- Enforced subject access requests – Section 56 of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) is expected to be brought into force on 1 December 2014, to make it a criminal offence to request an enforced subject access request. This means employers will be prohibited from asking job applicants to request a copy of their criminal records in order to check whether they have any criminal convictions. This change does not prevent employers carrying out DBS checks for those jobs for which it is required.
If you would like more information, or specific advice, please contact Roger Bull or get in contact with your usual Burges Salmon representative.