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The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has confirmed that some of the provisions of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill will be introduced outside the common April and October commencement dates.
A BIS spokesperson told Personnel Today that the settlement agreement admissibility provisions in the Bill may be bought forward and introduced outside the common commencement dates "where there is a business benefit for doing so". This could also be the case with the proposed reduction in the unfair dismissal compensatory award that has already been announced, as well as other employment law changes.
In the case of the settlement agreement provisions, BIS said that it was keen to introduce them outside the common commencement dates because "we want to make settlement agreements available as soon as they are ready".
Until this confirmation from BIS, for several years changes to employment law have been introduced on the same two dates every year. These dates, 6 April and 1 October, benefit employers by enabling them to be aware of forthcoming changes and to plan accordingly.
The decision to introduce some changes outside the common commencement dates has been greeted cautiously by commentators.
Max Winthorp, head of employment at SRF Legal and XpertHR employment law manual updating author, said: "The common commencement date seems to have served us well in the past - it is a sensible and consistent approach in an area where both industry and employees and their respective advisers have had to cope with constant legislative change.
"Without a common date - or the discipline of using a common date imposed on the legislature - we will lose the simple practicality of being able to deal with change on a bi-annual basis. It is often said, at the risk of using a cliché, that employment is a dynamic relationship. In dealing with such matters as performance reviews or salary increases employers have to consider cost. With common commencement dates it is much easier to make an intelligent forecast of the cost impact of legislative change.
"If we have piecemeal implementation - a tweak to the Working Time Regulations one month, a change to TUPE Regulations the next - this advantage will be lost."
He added: "While it might be argued that the impact o
