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Changes to two-week entitlement – employees taking paternity leave will be able to take their statutory two-week entitlement as two separate blocks of one week (if they choose to do so), rather than the current position which requires it to be taken as either two consecutive weeks, or just one single week in total.

When leave can be taken – paternity leave will be able to be taken any time during the 52 weeks after the birth. Currently, paternity leave has to be taken in the 56 days following birth.

Notice – employees will only need to give you 28 days’ notice that they intend to take statutory paternity leave. Currently, employees need to give you a minimum of 15 weeks’ notice before the Expected Week of Childbirth (EWC).

Who the changes apply to – these changes will apply in all instances where the EWC is on or after 06 April 2024.

Updating paternity leave policy – you’ll need to make the changes to your paternity leave policy and any connected documents (and ideally let employees know of the changes). Get in touch to subscribe to Intelligent Employment – our unique service that takes the load off so you can progress with your people plan.

The legislation adds into our domestic legislation certain provisions of EU discrimination law that would otherwise have fallen away at the end of 2023 due to the Brexit provisions.

Good news! That means everything you knew about discrimination before 01 January is largely the same! This is with one exception – the definition of what classifies as a ‘disability’. There are a few more, but you’ll have to come to our training on 06 February to discuss those (book now!).

Defining disability

Defining what amounts to a disability is obviously important – if a claimant is not disabled for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 then they won’t be able to bring a successful disability discrimination claim. So what’s changing?

In addition to the usual test, the claimant will have to show that they are not able to “participate fully and effectively in working life on an equal basis with other workers who are not disabled”. In principle, this is an additional burden on the claimant who needs to show not only that their condition affects their normal day-to-day activities outside of work, but also now within work.

‘Rolled-up’ holiday pay calculations – this will be permitted for those working irregular hours from 01 January 2024. If you want to roll up holiday pay for individuals working irregular hours (you don’t have to!) you will be able to uplift their hourly pay by 12.07% to take account for their holiday.

An example – an employee has worked 20 hours in one pay period (such as a month) at a rate of £12 per hour. You want to include payment for holiday accrued during that period (rolling up their holiday). From 01 January 2024, you can pay them £268.97 for that pay period (which includes an uplift of 12.07% on the £240 they would have otherwise been due).

First four weeks’ holiday pay – from 01 January 2024, holiday pay for the first four weeks of holiday taken by workers and employees with variable pay must be calculated to include overtime, commission, and payments for length of service, seniority or professional qualifications. 

Remaining holiday pay – any holiday pay in excess of four weeks will not legally need to include the variable elements of pay (such as commission and overtime). Of course, you can choose to include variable elements for all holiday pay calculations if you want to avoid the admin burden of splitting it out.

Case law – tribunal decisions already meant that holiday pay should be calculated in accordance with what this new law requires, but this is the first time we’ve seen it set out in legislation. Many employers have, until now, taken a view as to whether to calculate holiday pay in this way.

Penalties – those who ignore the law from 01 January 2024 can expect potential claims for unlawful deductions from wages. These claims can go back as far as two years.