Changes to look out for in 2017
As ever, this year will see a number of changes in some key business areas. At UK Training we pride ourselves on keeping ahead of our competitors by carefully monitoring the legislative and regulatory changes that are proposed or due to take place. We make sure that all our courses deliver the most up to date and relevant information, enabling your organisation to be well prepared for the challenges ahead.
We have highlighted a number of these important changes below…
Gender Pay Gap Reporting
The Gender Pay Gap Regulations come into force on 5th April 2017 and organisations employing more than 250 workers will have to collect information on pay and bonuses from as early as April 2016. The first reports must be published by 4th April 2018 and are based on the first snapshot date of 5th April 2017, so there is very little time to prepare. Much of the work will be a manual task for payroll staff as the software developers have not had the necessary information to update their payroll software ahead of the implementation date.
It became very clear at the first presentation of our new course - Gender Pay Gap Reporting: Are You Prepared?, that HR and Payroll professionals are going to need a lot of help understanding the vague and confusing demands of this new legislation.
Employment Law & Payroll
As well as the introduction of Gender Pay Gap Reporting, April brings further changes and new costs for employers...
In April, the National Living Wage for workers over 25, will increase from £7.20 to £7.50. At the same time the National Minimum Wage rate for 21 to 24 year old workers will rise to £7.05 an hour, the rate for 18 to 20 year olds will increase to £5.60 an hour, and the rate for 16 and 17 year olds will go up to £4.05 an hour.
Employers with an annual payroll of more than £3 million will have to invest in apprenticeships by paying a new Apprenticeship Levy of 0.5% of their total wage bill.
New restrictions on industrial action are due to be implemented soon. Trade unions will need at least 50% of their members to vote and have a majority for lawful strike action. For important public services, such as transport and health, 40% of the whole of the union’s registered membership must vote in favour of industrial action for a strike to be lawful.
To ensure that you are fully up to date with the rules and are operating a compliant payroll and HR operation, you may wish to consider attending one of our half-day update courses. We present Payroll and HR: The Essential Update and The Employment Law Update.
General Data Protection Regulation
May 2018 is the month when GDPR comes fully into force, so 2017 will be a very busy year for all UK organisations that control or process data. All existing policies, procedures and systems must be brought into line with the higher standards required by the new law. You will need to carry out a full audit on the data you hold and revise policies on consent, privacy, subject access and responses to a data breach.
To help businesses prepare for the significant changes, we have been presenting a full-day course on the new Regulation. The course is extremely popular and we have presentations coming up at many venues across the country.
Brexit
With the High Court confirming this week that Parliament must vote before Article 50 can be triggered, the Government has quickly moved to allay fears that the timescales could be changed. They said “The British people voted to leave the EU, and the government will deliver on their verdict - triggering Article 50 as planned - by the end of March. This ruling does nothing to change that." Once Article 50 is triggered, the UK will have two years to negotiate their exit from the EU.
There is no doubt that Brexit will affect UK businesses but to what extent depends largely on the outcome of negotiations and the approach the Government takes to existing EU legislation. Although much is still unknown, businesses can get a head start on understanding the likely VAT consequences of Brexit by attending our popular half-day course, Brexit – The Future of UK VAT.
The Construction Industry Scheme
The main raft of changes to the CIS came in over the past two years but there is another change coming up in April that you need to be aware of. Contractors are currently able to verify whether sub-contractors can be paid gross online or by phone. From April 2017, the option to verify subcontractors over the phone will be removed and mandatory online verification will be introduced. This change and all of the recent significant changes to the CIS will be discussed at length in our comprehensive new half-day course, The Construction Industry Scheme - A Practical Guide.
Article written by: Stephen Smith, Managing Director | UK Training (Worldwide) Limited
http://www.uktraining.eu/news-article/changes-to-look-out-for-in-2017/44?type%5B%5D=classroom