Monthly Bulletin – April 2025 – Practical Perspectives

New statutory rates for 2025

April marks the month each year where changes to statutory rates come into force. Most rate changes take effect from 6^th April (to align with the start of the new tax year). National minimum wage changes take effect from 1^st April. 

The statutory rates for family leave, sick pay, redundancy and the cap on unfair dismissal compensatory awards will, from 6^th April 2025, be as follows:

Statutory maternity pay	£187.18 per week
Statutory paternity pay	£187.18 per week
Statutory shared parental pay	£187.18 per week
Statutory adoption pay	£187.18 per week
Statutory parental bereavement pay	£187.18 per week
Statutory neonatal care leave pay	£118.75 per week
Statutory sick pay	£118.75 per week
Statutory guarantee pay	£39 per day
Statutory redundancy pay	£719 per week
Maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal	£118,223

The average gross weekly earnings required to qualify for the various forms of family leave pay will also increase from Â£123.00 or more per week, to Â£125.00 or more per week from 6^th April 2025. 

In addition, we have new figures for national minimum wage which take effect from 1^st April 2025: 

Category	Rate
Aged 21 and above	£12.21
Aged 18-20	£10
Aged under 18 (but above compulsory school leaving age)	£7.55
Apprentices aged under 19	£7.55
Apprentices aged 19 or over but in the first year of their apprenticeship	£7.55

These amounts may be replaced by higher payments if the employer chooses to offer more voluntarily or is required to do so under the employee’s contract.

Court of Appeal agrees with EAT that Ofsted inspector dismissed for brushing water off a child’s head was unfairly dismissed

The recent Court of Appeal judgment in Hewston v Ofsted serves as a reminder to employers of the importance of using policies to set clear workplace standards. It also shows that, if an act isn’t misconduct, an employer cannot throw other factors (such as reputational damage and a lack of ‘insight’) into the mix to bump it up. In this case, the Claimant, an experienced Ofsted inspector with a clean disciplinary record, was summarily dismissed after touching a pupil’s forehead and shoulder to remove rainwater. 

Touching a pupil was not listed as an example of gross misconduct in the Respondent’s policies, there was no inappropriate motive behind the touching and the Respondent failed to provide the Claimant with several key documents during the disciplinary process, including the pupil complaint and the school’s report into it. 

Upholding the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s finding of unfair dismissal, the Court of Appeal gave a useful restatement of the principles applying to conduct dismissals:

• Examples of gross misconduct are generally listed in disciplinary policies. If something is not included in the list, this does not automatically mean that an employer cannot summarily dismiss for it.
• However, if the act is unlisted, it will be critical to the fairness of any dismissal to consider whether the employee could reasonably expect the employer to regard the act as serious misconduct having regard to the nature of the act and the surrounding circumstances. In this case, it was held that the Claimant could not reasonably have expected the Respondent to regard the act as serious misconduct given the context. 
• An employer should not be able to bump up the seriousness of conduct which is not capable of justifying dismissal just because the employee failed to show contrition. Given the conduct was not capable of justifying dismissal, the Claimant’s lack of contrition could not ‘bump up’ the seriousness of the conduct. 
• Loss of trust and confidence and the risk of reputational harm can be a relevant factor in reaching a disciplinary sanction but “it cannot be a stand-alone basis for such a decision; there must at least be some misconduct”.
• Employees should be provided with copies of all documents relevant to anything in dispute in the disciplinary process prior to any decision being reached. 

Changes to collective redundancy provisions as Employment Rights Bill moves to the House of Lords

The current legal position on collective redundancy is fairly clear:

• Wherever an employer proposes to make 20 or more employees redundant at any one establishment within 90 days then an obligation to collectively consult with appropriate representatives is engaged. 
• The length of consultation depends on the number of redundancies being made: at least 30 days for 20-99 redundancies, and at least 45 days where 100 or more redundancies are proposed. The meaning of the term ‘establishment’ has been the subject of several significant cases, the most well-known being USDAW v WW Realisation (1) Limited and Ethel Austin, better known as the ‘Woolworths case’. In this case, the ECJ looked at the question of whether each Woolworths branch was a separate ‘establishment’ or whether the business should be looked at as a whole. It decided that each branch could be treated as a separate establishment which meant that, as most branches had fewer than 20 employees, the obligation to collectively consult did not arise. 

• Where an employer breached its collective consultation obligations, employees (or their representatives) are able to bring a claim for a protective award of up to 90 days gross pay (uncapped).

This all looks increasingly likely to change under the Employment Rights Bill, which is currently being debated in the House of Lords. The Government recently published its response to its consultation on strengthening remedies against abuse of rules on collective redundancy and fire and rehire. Key points to note from the response include:

• The cap on protective awards in collective redundancy situations will be increased from 90 days at present to 180 days to encourage employer compliance. This change will be included in the Employment Rights Bill.
• A proposal that interim relief should be available in claims for protective awards and/or claims for unfair dismissal on grounds of fire and re-hire (which are to be introduced in the Employment Rights Bill) will not be taken forward. The government acknowledged that this would place undue burdens on businesses and tribunals.

When the Employment Rights Bill was first published, it included a proposal to remove the concept of ‘establishment’ from the definition of collective redundancy. This would’ve meant that collective consultation would’ve been engaged whenever the total number of redundancies across a business was 20 or more, even if each site was making fewer than 20 redundancies. The proposal to remove ‘any one establishment’ from collective redundancy rules has been changed. The revised plan reinstates the ‘one establishment’ concept but allows regulations to set an alternative threshold for collective consultation to bite when redundancies occur across multiple sites. The alternative threshold is likely to be based on redundancies across the business as a whole and could be a percentage, or a higher number than 20. We will have to wait for regulations to know what this number (and/or percentage) will be.

Single enforcement body for employment rights: Fair Work Agency begins to take shape

When Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay included a pledge to create a single enforcement body for employment rights, it constituted one of the party’s less eye-catching proposals for reform. However, as the role of the ‘Fair Work Agency’ (as it will be called) begins to take shape under the provisions of the Employment Rights Bill, what is emerging is significantly more striking than might have initially been thought. The Amendment Paper, published last week, includes significant strides to increase the Fair Work Agency’s role. In particular, it will be able to:

• Bring Employment Tribunal claims on behalf of a worker if the worker has the right to make a claim but chooses not to.
• Offer claimants legal assistance for employment cases, with the cost of this being recoverable from the other side should the claim be successful. 
• Enforce failure to keep adequate records of holiday pay for six years – through prosecution and potentially unlimited fines. 
• Enforce failure to pay some statutory payments including holiday pay and sick pay by issuing a notice of underpayment. The amount payable in the notice must be paid within 28 days, alongside a penalty payment which must be paid direct to the government. This proposal would bring these statutory entitlements in line with the regime which is already in place to cover national minimum wage.  

These are all government amendments, which means they have a good chance of making their way into the final Bill. The implications for employers are potentially huge.

It could fundamentally alter the dynamics of employment litigation in the areas covered by it. For example, an employer hoping to rely on worker loyalty or indifference to keep claims at bay may find that the FWA, seeing a worker’s reticence to claim, simply brings the claim itself. The commercial considerations involved in defending a tribunal claim where the FWA is involved will need to include the additional risk of having to pay the FWA’s costs.

It is early days, and we are a long way off these proposals taking effect. Their eventual impact is likely to be largely dependent on the level of funding and resourcing which the FWA is given to realise its powers. 

Government provides clarity on the future of Statutory Sick Pay

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is the amount payable by employers when an employee is absent from work due to sickness. It is currently set at a flat rate of £118.75 (from 6^th April 2025). There are certain eligibility requirements, including the fact that SSP is not currently payable during the first three days of absence, known as ‘waiting days’ and that those earning below the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) – £125 per week – were not eligible.

The Employment Rights Bill proposes to make changes to SSP rules. In particular:

• The concept of ‘waiting days’ will disappear. Eligible employees will receive SSP from their first day of absence.
• Those earning below the LEL will now be eligible to receive SSP.

Acknowledging that the rate of SSP would need to be adjusted for those earning less than the LEL, the Government launched a consultation at the back end of last year focused on establishing what percentage of earnings should be used to calculate SSP for these workers. In its response, the Government has concluded that the appropriate percentage rate for SSP is 80% of the SSP flat rate, where 80% of an employee’s normal weekly earnings is less than the flat rate. To give a real-world example, if an employee earns £100 per week, then they earn below the LEL (and below the current weekly flat rate for SSP). Under the new rules they would be entitled to receive 80% of £100 (or £80) per week as an SSP payment.